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Elon Musk, in his first address to Twitter Inc. employees since purchasing the company for $44 billion, said that bankruptcy was a possibility if it doesn’t start generating more cash, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The warning came amid a tumultuous start to Musk’s reign at the social media company — a two-week period in which he has fired half of Twitter’s staff, ushered out most of the top executives and ordered the remaining employees to stop working from home. Two executives who until today had emerged as part of Musk’s new leadership team, Yoel Roth and Robin Wheeler, are also on the way out, people familiar with the situation said.
While the buyout has removed Twitter from the scrutiny of public markets, Musk loaded the company with almost $13 billion of debt that’s now in the hands of seven Wall Street banks that have been unable to offload it to investors.
Confidence in the company has eroded so rapidly that, even before Musk’s bankruptcy comments, some funds were offering to buy the loans for as little as 60 cents on the dollar — a price typically reserved for companies deemed in financial distress, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
In his address to staff, Musk issued multiple dour warnings. Employees should brace for 80-hour work weeks. There will be fewer office perks like free food. And he ended the pandemic-era flexibility that allowed employees to work from home.
“If you don’t want to come, resignation accepted,” he said, according to a person familiar with the matter.
