Here’s what happened after Elon Musk cut 80% of X – which he aims at USAID

On By Littum

Topline

Elon Musk’s campaign to get rid of 10% Of the US ‘2.3 million strong federal workforce, including all 10,000 employees of the US Agency for International Development, has suffered historically precedent, but it evokes memories of the world’s richest man’s acquisition of 2022 by the social media company Twitter, now known as X.

Key facts

Just six months after closing its acquisition of $ 44 billion of Twitter in October 2022, Musk told BBC He removed the company’s employee number to 1,500, down approx. 80% from 7,500 employees at the end of 2021, as noted in the company’s last annual report as a public company.

The dramatic restructuring came as a result of layoffs and volunteer severance packages when the social media company was about Musk’s “extremely hardcore” culture that is placed in an email with all hands with the subject line “A Fork in the Road.”

It is the same subject line that all federal employees received last week in their E -Mail offers volunteer buyouts, an offer about 20,000 – or 1% – of workers have taken so far, while Musk and his allies have orchestrated the administrative leave of almost all USAD employees.

What happened to Twitter (now X) after Musk’s job cut?

Social Media Company initially took a massive financial hit as its workforce shrinked. Its advertising revenue in 2023, Musk’s first full year at the helm of X, rejected to a reported $ 2.5 billion, a more than 45% fall from Twitter’s ad sales in 2021, its last full year as a public company that causes Fidelity to write down its valuation of X to as little as $ 9 billion last September, just One fifth of the sticker Price Musk paid two years before. After Musk’s acquisition, the company reviews its activities, cut Its content moderation and communication teams and reshaped its platform focusing on premium monthly subscriptions and algorithm-based feeds like Tikkoks.

Has Musk’s X rebounded since his redundancies and restructuring?

To some extent, yes. In recent months, X has begun to show signs of improvement. Fidelity Increased Its X -Valuation to about $ 13 billion in December and more major advertisers, including Amazon, is Renewal their presence on the platform. X’s financial items that were recovered in 2024 on its slimmer model, like Bloomberg Reports X brought in $ 1.2 billion in adjusted earnings last year within a significant distance of 2021’s $ 1.4 billion with a much slimmer staff.

Will XS rebound continue?

XS recent rebound Tracks back To Musk’s Chummy relationship with President Donald Trump, but Musk’s activities outside his corporate role are a big part of why the company landed in hot water in the first place. Larger companies like Disney and Apple paused Ads on X at the end of 2023 after Musk approved an anti -Semitic conspiracy theory while others Balket on the lack of content guard on site.

How mess was Musk’s dismissals at X?

Very. The musk-led push to trim 6,000 positions in X, a much smaller scale than the government’s cuts, which he hopes to supervise, brought significant legal challenges from employees-Inclusive more than 2,000 arbitration cases after X did not pay the severance pack Musk and more wider litigation. The fate of these lawsuits has been mixed: a federal judge Thrown a trial Accuses him of skimping at half a billion in severance payments while another severance -based suit were allowed to continue Partly.

Main critic

Musk is taking “The same Twitter-Playbook now with the Federal Government”, Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer who represents many of the former Twitter/X employees in arbitration against their former employer, told NPR. “And he couldn’t even come up with a new subject line to the email,” Liss-Riordan continued.

News stick

In the latest signal of institutional confidence in X, banks that helped fund Musk’s acquisition plan 2022 to sell $ 5.5 billion of X’s debt to 97 cents on the dollar, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Key

Government bodies do not have a similar catch-all performance metrics that companies do with the scale of profits, but Musk’s private sector CV shows clear evidence of operational efficiency management. Tesla, Musk’s most valuable company and the primary source of his wealth, grew to be an investor favorite because of its high profit margins compared to other car companies, partly made possible by its relatively lean staff. Tesla had 141,000 employees around the world by the end of 2023 compared to Ford’s 177,000 and General Motors’ 163,000, according to the company’s latest proxy statement. And yet, Tesla brought in $ 10.9 billion in net revenue by 2023, and Ford’s net profit of $ 8.1 billion and General Motors ’10, $ 5 billion, despite Legacy Automatians’ higher employees.

Forbes value

Musk is worth $ 400 billion, according to Forbes’ calculations, making him the world’s richest person with an approx. $ 150 billion margin. X accounted for less than $ 7 billion of his fortune from November.

Additional reading

ForbesTrump’s Federal Buyout offer expires tomorrow – as over 20,000 employees agree to leave: Here’s what to knowBy Sara Dorn
ForbesUSAID CONTROVERS LIVE UPDATIONS: Almost all USAids 10,000 global employees to be placed on leaveBy Siladitya Ray