Yesterday, Thursday, Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, warned of the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt, capping a chaotic day, one of the most prominent of which was a warning from the privacy regulator in the United States and the resignation of the company's trust and safety officer, according to a Reuters report.
The Reuters report, citing news from Bloomberg News, said that the American billionaire, in his first conference call with employees, said that he could not rule out bankruptcy, two weeks after he bought the platform for $ 44 billion, a deal that credit experts say left the situation Twitter's finances are in a precarious situation.
Earlier Thursday, in his first company-wide email, Musk warned that Twitter would not be able to "survive the next economic downturn" if it failed to raise subscription revenue to offset lower ad income, three people who viewed the message told Reuters. .
successive resignations
Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that Yoel Roth, who oversaw Twitter's response plan to combat hate speech, disinformation and spam on the platform, resigned on Thursday.
On his Twitter profile on Thursday, Roth described himself as the "former head of trust and safety" at the company.
Bloomberg and technology website Platformer were the first to report its exit.
Earlier Thursday, Twitter's chief information security officer, Leah Kessner, tweeted that she had resigned.
Chief Privacy Officer Damien Keran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty have also resigned, according to an internal message posted on Twitter's Slack messaging system yesterday by a lawyer on its privacy team and seen by Reuters.
The US Federal Trade Commission said it was watching Twitter "with deep concern", after the resignations of the three privacy and compliance officers, and the resignations likely put Twitter at risk of violating regulatory orders.
Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, told some employees in an email late yesterday that Twitter will remain in compliance with regulatory orders.
"We spoke to the FTC today about our ongoing commitments, and we have an ongoing constructive dialogue," Spiro wrote.
He stated that only Twitter, not employees, could be held liable for regulatory orders.
In his first meeting with several employees on Twitter Thursday afternoon, Musk warned that the company could lose billions of dollars next year, the information said.
In an email to workers, Musk added that remote work will no longer be allowed, and that they are expected to remain in the office for at least 40 hours a week.
Musk had laid off a large number of employees after taking office on October 27, and said the company was losing more than $4 million a day, largely because advertisers started fleeing as soon as he took over.
Twitter has $13 billion in debt following the completion of the acquisition, and is facing interest payments totaling nearly $1.2 billion in the next 12 months.
The payments exceeded the cash flow recently disclosed on Twitter, which amounted to $1.1 billion at the end of last June.
And Musk began charging a fee of $8 a month for Twitter Blue, which will include account verification in blue.
Regulatory warning escalates
"We are following recent developments on Twitter with deep concern," FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar told Reuters.
"No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decisions," Farrar said. "Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are ready to use them."
Twitter agreed in May to pay $150 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that it misused private information, such as phone numbers, to target ads to users, after telling them the information had been collected solely for security reasons.
Twitter's privacy attorney said yesterday in the internal memo that Spiro said Musk was willing to take "a great deal of risk" with the company.
The acquisition of Twitter has raised concerns that Musk, who often engages in political discussions, may face pressure from countries trying to control political discourse online.
That prompted US President Joe Biden to say on Wednesday that "Musk's cooperation and/or technical relations with other countries are worth looking into."
reassurance and panic
On Wednesday, Musk reassured advertisers, speaking via the "Spaces" feature on Twitter, and indicated that he aims to turn the platform into a force for truth and stop fake accounts.
But that didn't appear to be enough, as the Chipotle Mexican Grill said it was withdrawing its paid and owned content on Twitter "while we get a better understanding of the platform's direction under its new leadership".
The popular Mexican food chain joins other brands, including General Motors (GM), which have paused advertising on Twitter since Musk took charge, out of concern that it will loosen content moderation rules.
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