Comment by darth_avocado
17 hours ago
> Something like 80% of the company left or was let go, and despite all the smug laughing about how the platform would go under within weeks, it just kept on going
I’ve heard this claim many times and is not backed by any more evidence than “it works on my machine”.
If the company really did continue to operate in the same manner, it wouldn’t have been worth 80% less in 2024 (https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-...), nor would it need to be rolled up and financially engineered into being part of an AI company that then gets rolled into a rocket company.
It has been losing users, safety standards have dropped and overall the platform is worse off than before. There’s a reason why no other company has done something similar with their employee counts.
I think Twitter is worth less mainly because Musk removed some kinds of censorship and by doing that, scared advertisers. Not because the layoffs actually caused any significant technical issues. I don't think they did, since from a technical perspective X works just fine right now.
In my experience it is extremely buggy now. For months the “copy link” feature in tweets didn’t work. The video player is broken half the time, and videos get stuck when you try to rewind them.
Also, it is now full of bots and grifters, plus Musk’s own promoted tweets with whatever political thing he’s obsessed with at the moment showing up in everyone’s timelines.
He also removed the people selling the ads and the people working on the ad targeting platform, mind you. I think that's what differentiates from a normal "PE gutting/squeeze" and what people should be analyzing, but everyone (from "both sides" of the Musk equation) gets caught up on the uptime number for some reason.
I want to agree with you. But I cannot.
The matter of the fact is that most governments and newspapers publish on twitter (now X) still. It also serves the purpose of amplifying Musk to a large audience.
If you wanted to transform a public forum into a right -wing echo chamber, then the transformation is a massive success and the platform continues to achieve all relevant objectives.
You’re ignoring the context of the comment here. The parent uses an example of Twitter doing better after laying off 81% of the staff to suggest that other companies could do the same.
While you’re right in that the platform has its uses, other companies cannot do the same. Which is why it’s important to talk about objective success metrics. Sure if you want to fire 80% staff at Microsoft and have a transformation where they only cater to half the user base then they can do it. But they will also not be taking in the same profits as before.
Good points. Viewing it from the lens of the original business model or mission, it's a disaster.
I don't think it's right, but I can see how a billionaire just completely overrides the company mission and business model after they buy enough shares or something.
Maybe there are other non-obvious use-cases for other companies, where you're effectively buying the user base to then pull the rug.
A lot of the original customers will just accept such a change. See Twitter or GitHub.
> If the company really did continue to operate in the same manner, it wouldn’t have been worth 80% less in 2024 (https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/business/elon-musk-twitter-x-...), nor would it need to be rolled up and financially engineered into being part of an AI company that then gets rolled into a rocket company.
Musk paid an absurd premium for the company. Far more than it was worth. It was intended to force the board to sell. So an 80% estimated drop (it’s private so it’s a very rough estimate and I won’t go into the various reasons you should not accept it at face value), sounds scary but it’s by design.
Twitter as a company was doing quite poorly leading up to the acquisition. It lost more than $1.3B in the two preceding years. A big downgrade from its previous $1B+ annual reported profits.
As for the 81% headcount reduction, Musk confirmed that, but if you think he’s lying about that for some reason, CNBC investigated it. Journalists examined internal Twitter records and reported approximately 1,300 actively working employees, with another 1,400 still receiving pay but no longer working. CNBC also interviewed two recent employees who corroborated the scale of the reductions. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/twitter-is-down-to-fewer-tha...
Prior to acquisition, Twitter's SEC filings confirmed more than 7,500 full-time employees.
I don’t see why this claim is so unbelievable. Twitter was famous for its army of social media staff whose entire day comprised two meeting between matcha tea and meditation. https://youtube.com/watch?v=buF4hB5_rFs
Musk just fired everyone who wasn’t an engineer and it turns out the engineers keep the lights on.
I don’t see anything in what you wrote really support that Twitter did well after firing 80% of its staff.
As for this:
> Twitter as a company was doing quite poorly leading up to the acquisition
This is objectively false. 2020 revenue for Twitter was $3.71B while 2021 came in at $5.07B. The company was on a growth trajectory and path to profitability.
In fact, after the acquisition, the ad revenue dropped by a lot. https://www.businessinsider.com/x-revenues-plunged-months-af...
All of this is public information.
> I don’t see anything in what you wrote really support that Twitter did well after firing 80% of its staff.
That’s because I didn’t make any claims about X’s financial performance. I was explaining to you why you were wrong on some important facts.
> This is objectively false. 2020 revenue for Twitter was $3.71B while 2021 came in at $5.07B.
First, you’re conflating revenue and profit, which is kind of unforgivable in this context. Second, I explained that in those years they made large profits. In my comment. Which you clearly didn’t read.
If this is just where you like to emotionally vent may I instead recommend Reddit? I like the interesting discussions here.
You're argument was Musk and his investors designed an 80% drop in valuation post purchase?! LOL!?
No, Musk designed an offer that forced the board to sell to uphold its fiduciary duty to shareholders. (And then famously got cold feet about it, but it was so well-designed that he couldn’t shirk it.)
The valuation crashing back to reality after going private, and therefore being measured by its intrinsic worth rather than whatever the latest trader paid for a share of it, was an inevitable but meaningless consequence.
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Elon Musk was the only investor. Which investors are you referring to? And yes, when you pay a premium for stock, you’re paying more than the intrinsic value. This was widely reported so I don’t understand why you would pretend that it’s a big secret.
There was also a report saying X is back to its original valuation https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/19/value-elo...
The Financial Times report is behind a paywall so I'm not sure how that evaluation was reached. Also there are a bunch of bizarre financial shenanigans Musk has freely pulled with zero scrutiny. Hard to gauge the full impact of the layoffs when the person at the helm is profoundly amoral and has no scruples about lying.
`Investors valued the platform at $44bn in a so-called secondary deal earlier this month, in which they exchange existing stakes in the company, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.`
and `X’s revenues have dropped since Musk’s takeover, but it posted about $1.2bn in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation in 2024, according to two people familiar with the matter — roughly flat with the period before Musk’s takeover.`
That hbn user has had these delusions for at least two years. They are not interested in evidence: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42000121
Users are coming back. These aren't the sort of users to come back to a dying platform
https://x.com/firefox
https://x.com/marcoarment
https://x.com/viticci
https://x.com/CaseyNewton
https://x.com/gruber