Twitter is struggling as a company due to falling morale, staff departures, and reduced spending by advertisers as the ongoing Elon Musk acquisition trial continues, according to multiple current and former employees. One former executive called the company “rudderless,” with a current employee remarked, “Everyone’s given up on leadership.”
The Financial Times reports that social media website Twitter is struggling amidst its legal battle with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with falling company morale, staff departures, and marketers reducing their ad spend affecting the company’s $4.5 billion a year advertising business. One former executive told the Times that Twitter appears “a bit rudderless.” Adding that the company has been “forced to do what they didn’t want to do by a rich guy’s whim.”
Company insiders and ad industry executives told the Financial Times that Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is leading a continually stressed effort to keep the company running smoothly as it continues its legal battle to prevent Musk from backing out of his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter.
Agrawal has reportedly attempted to spend extra time with advertisers in recent months to answer their concerns. Twitter is reportedly blaming “uncertainty” over Musk’s company takeover and a slump in digital ad spending as some of the many reasons that revenue fell in the second quarter.
Tensions between staff and company leadership have also reportedly grown since the announcement of Musk’s takeover bid in April. In early July, Twitter laid off approximately 30 percent of its talent acquisition team. The company also implemented a hiring freeze and cost-cutting measures. On Tuesday, the company said it had “significantly slowed hiring” in the second quarter and had seen “our attrition rate increase.”
“Everyone’s given up on leadership,” one senior Twitter employee said. “It seems like Twitter’s take is ‘This man is awful [but] he should run the company. Either way it seems like the loser gets Twitter.”
Read more at the Financial Times here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan