Twitter workers now unemployed thanks to Elon Musk are unlikely to get an apology from him. But they did just receive one from Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder who led the company until November last year.
In a tweet on Saturday morning, one day after his longtime friend Musk slashed about half the company’s workforce, Dorsey wrote:
“Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment. I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.”
He added, “I am grateful for, and love, everyone who has ever worked on Twitter. I don’t expect that to be mutual in this moment…or ever…and I understand.”
The love and gratitude might be hard to reciprocate for some considering Dorsey praised Musk as the “singular solution I trust” to run the company back in April, when the takeover saga began. “This is the right path…I believe it with all my heart,” he added at the time.
As for Musk, he tweeted Friday night that the mass layoffs were necessary, writing: “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.”
Talking to investors earlier in the day at the Baron Investment Conference in New York City, he joked about overpaying for the social media company, Insider reported.
“I mean I think most people would say, given how [the] market has evolved this year, the price is on the high side,” Musk acknowledged onstage.
Wedbush Securities tech analyst Dan Ives called the $44 billion purchase “one of the most overpaid tech acquisitions in the history of M&A deals on the Street,” arguing that $25 billion would have been a fairer price.
At the conference, Musk said he expects the job cuts to save the company $400 million a year.
In September, leaked documents from the Elon Musk v. Twitter trial showed some of Dorsey’s thinking about the social network he co-founded in 2006. In texts to Musk, Dorsey wrote:
“I believe it must be an open source protocol, funded by a foundation of sorts that doesn’t own the protocol, only advances it. A bit like what Signal has done. It can’t have an advertising model.”
Last month, Dorsey launched a decentralized social-media platform, Bluesky Social.
Musk, for his part, has seen a slew of companies suspend their advertising on Twitter, wary of its direction despite his assurances that it won’t become a “free-for-all hellscape.”
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