Elon Musk took to Twitter on Friday to offer a sense of his vision for the social media platform, after the acquisition goes through, also offering a sense of what its employees can expect, with regard to work life under his leadership.
Musk’s comments accompanied a screenshot of a recent Fortune article titled: “Job interest in Twitter skyrocketed more than 250% since Elon Musk moved to take over. But current employees are nervous.”
“If Twitter acquisition completes, company will be super focused on hardcore software engineering, design, infosec & server hardware,” the world’s richest man, who also heads up companies including SpaceX and Tesla, wrote. “Managers in software must write great software or it’s like being a cavalry captain who can’t ride a horse! Also, work ethic expectations would be extreme, but much less than I demand of myself.”
Musk first began buying up a significant amount of Twitter shares as recently as January, coming to own a 5% stake in the company by March 14. He first announced his intention to acquire Twitter for $54.20 a share on April 14. The idea wasn’t initially looked fondly on by the social media service’s Board of Directors, which went so far as to adopt a limited-duration shareholder rights plan, or “poison pill”, to dissuade him from attempting to take over the company. Still, within two weeks, he’d successfully closed a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said the day news broke of his breakthrough in negotiations with Twitter. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is expected to be finalized later in the year. Upon his takeover, Twitter will become a private company. Check out Musk’s thread on the company’s future by clicking below.
