Last night it was confirmed that Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter was accepted, with the social media platform set to be sold for an estimated $44 billion.
The dust of the deal is yet to settle, but naturally there are several questions that need answering as to what will happen once the deal is finalised, with quite a few coming from Twitter employees.
Unfortunately recently appointed Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, has offered up some less than comforting feedback.
According to information shared via an internal virtual call for all staff, the Twitter CEO fielded some important questions. One of these was regards layoffs, with Agrawal offering an indecisive answer. To that end he noted that, layoffs aren’t planned “at this time”
He added that he would remain Twitter CEO, but also explained that the future of the company is difficult to predict at this time. “There is indeed uncertainty about what will happen after the deal closes.”
It is certainly an answer that will leave employees feeling less than confident regarding the fate of the platform and their role in it.
Agrawal went on to answer questions regarding free speech, something that Elon Musk has called himself a major proponent for, and cited as one of the reasons why he was interested in purchasing the social media platform in the first place.
Queries from staff on this front pertained to the likes of former US President Donald Trump, whose account was suspended after he lost the 2020 elections and has since gone to spin up his own offering.
On that front, Agrawal gave another inconclusive response. “Once the deal closes we don’t know which direction the platform will go,” he explained.
“We don’t have all the answers. This is a period of uncertainty,” the Twitter CEO concluded.
As such it looks like while the fate of Twitter’s existence is not in question, how its platform is regulated, monitored and policed may be, with current employees potentially being the first casualties.
With the deal set to be finalised later this year, along with regulatory bodies also needing to weigh in on it, this is indeed a chaotic time for Twitter.
[Source – The Verge]
