'Unfortunately there is no choice': Elon Musk reacts to layoffs; says Twitter losing $4 million every day

Elon Musk also said that Twitter faced a lot of difficulty with activist groups pressuring its advertisers to stop spending on Twitter.

Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk today reacted to the layoffs happening at the micro-blogging site and said that there is no choice for him as the company is losing $4 million per day. He said that sacked employees were given 50 per cent more severance compared to legally required criteria. "Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required," said Musk in a Tweet.

In another tweet, he said that Twitter's commitment towards content moderation remains unchanged. "Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press," said Musk. 

Twitter began laying off its staff yesterday from across verticals and that affected India too. According to reports, many Indian staffs were sacked that including the whole marketing and communication team in the country.

Musk also said that Twitter faced a lot of difficulty with activist groups pressuring its advertisers to stop spending on Twitter. "Recently we had a lot of difficulty with activist groups pressuring major advertisers to stop spending money on Twitter. This is despite us doing everything possible to appease them and to make it clear that moderation rules and (inaudible) conduct rules have not changed and we are continuing to enforce them. A number of major advertisers have stopped spending on Twitter.....Activist groups have been successful in causing a massive drop in Twitter's advertising revenue, and we`ve done our absolute best to appease them and nothing is working," said Musk in a video interview. 

The billionaire said that Twitter was having serious revenue challenges and cost challenges before the acquisition talks started. Reacting to hate speeches on Twitter, Musk said, "It is not okay to engage in hateful conduct on Twitter. So, we have had, like actually, like big targeted attacks where temporarily people put some hate speech on Twitter, but those were taken down immediately. So now, part of what I am trying to achieve with this enabling everyone to be payment verified with Twitter blue is to try to get as many people payment verified as possible."

Musk, the world`s richest person, is looking to cut around 3,700 Twitter staff, or about half the workforce, as he seeks to slash costs and impose a demanding new work ethic. Musk has said that Twitter will charge $8 per month from verified users if they want to continue keeping Blue Tick.

(With agency inputs)