Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, will hold a meeting with Twitter employees on Thursday. This is the first meeting that he has had with them since he launched his offer to buy the social network for 44,000 million dollars (about 42,000 million euros) last April. The event was announced by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in an email sent to staff. The manager advanced employees who could submit questions to Musk before the meeting.
The meeting will be virtual and the tycoon is expected to answer questions from the employees of the social platform, who are concerned about the changes that he may introduce in the company if the acquisition finally materializes. Many employees are unhappy with Musk, who has openly criticized some actions of Twitter, its products and its policies.
In addition, and as published by Bloomberg last April, Musk told the banks with which he was negotiating the loan to execute the operation, which would focus on Twitter’s profitability and in their conversations raised the idea of ​​cutting the company’s costs and staff, although it did not go into detail about which departments or positions could be affected. Twitter currently has about 7,500 workers.
The employees of the social network are also on alert after Musk said that it seemed good to him that his Tesla workers could telecommute if they first worked 40 hours a week in the office. Twitter was the first company to allow its employees to permanently work from home. And they fear a potential change in the company’s headquarters, something he did at Tesla, which moved it to Texas.
The meeting, which will be moderated by the company’s director of Human Resources and Marketing, Leslie Berland, will take place as doubts about the purchase grow, after Musk has threatened to withdraw from the agreement, accusing the Twitter address of “thwart” your requests for more information about the social network’s fake bots and accounts.
In a letter filed with the SEC, the SpaceX founder also said he had the right to make his own measurement of those accounts. Musk questions whether Twitter’s user base is as large as the company claims.
Many analysts have agreed that Musk could be using this issue to try to renegotiate the purchase price or even walk away from the deal altogether. The executives of the social network have assured for their part that they will share all the information requested by the founder of Tesla and have reported that they plan to enforce the agreement. Shares of Twitter closed at $37.03 on Monday, well below Musk’s offer price of $54.20.
The meeting also comes days after Agrawal announced a reshuffle of Twitter’s top leadership (those responsible for the consumption and income divisions leave the company) and suspend hiring and will review job offers, although he indicated that no dismissals are considered. Concerns about the actions that Musk may take if he finally buys the social network also reach the company’s board, which has not escaped criticism from the tycoon, although some have millionaire shields by contract.
