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　　Tesla CEO Elon Musk's plans to buy Twitter may not be good news for Twitter employees.

　　On October 20, local time, according to The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter and a document, Musk plans to reduce Twitter’s 7,500 employees to more than 2,000 in the next few months.

　　In other words, Twitter needs to lay off nearly 75% of its workforce.

　　The report quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that after months of legal disputes, Musk’s planned $44 billion acquisition is moving forward in an orderly manner and is likely to be completed by October 28.

　　In a memo to employees following the Washington Post report, Twitter general counsel Sean Edgeter warned employees to expect "a great deal of public rumor and speculation" as the deal draws to a close. "Since the merger agreement has been put in place, there are no plans for any company-wide layoffs," he said.

　　In fact, as early as April of this year, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Musk had told investors that he planned to lay off Twitter when he initially sought funding from the bank.

　　However, the Washington Post report shows that even if Musk's deal with Twitter fails, Twitter's current management plans to cut the company's salary by about $800 million by the end of next year, a figure that means the company needs to be fired nearly a quarter of employees. At the same time, Twitter plans to slash spending on its infrastructure, including the data centers that keep the site up and running for the more than 200 million users who log in every day.

　　The Washington Post said the change could have a major impact on Twitter's ability to control harmful content and prevent data security crises in the future.

　　The impact of the layoffs could be felt immediately by Twitter's millions of users, said Edwin Chen, a data scientist who has worked on Twitter's spam and health metrics. He said that although he believes that Twitter has too many employees at present, the scale of layoffs proposed by Musk is unimaginable and will expose Twitter users to multiple risks such as hacking.

　　On Tesla's third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Musk said he paid too much for Twitter: "While it's clear that myself and other investors are clearly paying too much for Twitter right now, But in my view, Twitter's long-term potential is an order of magnitude greater than its current value."

　　According to the "Washington Post", the layoffs exposed this time explain why Twitter executives are eager to sell the company to Musk - Musk's $44 billion offer, although "hostile" and swaying halfway, is not a good idea. For the struggling social media company, it was a check in cash.

　　The months-long bidding process, combined with a tense legal battle, has scarred Twitter, which is facing severe employee turnover, slowing hiring, stalled projects and a volatile stock price.

　　Dan Ives, a financial analyst at Wedbush Securities, said: "It's easy for Musk to buy Twitter, but the hard part is fixing it. Turning that around will be a tough challenge."

　　Reshaping Twitter's workforce is a big part of Musk's ambitions, according to interviews and documents, according to The Washington Post. Musk sees the dramatic downsizing of the company as the first step in executing a turnaround strategy that will then involve bringing in more efficient employees and innovations, such as expanding the subscription business, where users pay for exclusive subscriptions offered by influential accounts. content.

　　Musk has also previously told investors that he plans to double revenue within three years and triple the number of daily users who watch ads over the same period, but he did not elaborate on how those goals will be achieved.

　　However, people familiar with the matter also said that according to Twitter, subscriptions may not bring new significant revenue, because the users who watch the most ads on Twitter are about 1% of the number of users in the United States, which is also the most likely to join subscriptions. users of the service. If they start paying monthly, the plan could eat into the most lucrative part of Twitter's current ad business.

　　The report also shows that Twitter's human resources staff told employees they did not plan to lay off large-scale layoffs, but the documents show that there were plans for a large number of layoffs and infrastructure cost cuts before Musk offered to buy the company. Musk would then build on those plans, targeting underperformers first, before making other stages of layoffs.

　　According to business management expert Nell Minow, Musk may need to "sell" his ambitious plans to potential investors, but the implementation of his plans will face challenges. “He has to prove, what happens next after the layoffs? What will he replace (Twitter’s original data security capabilities)? Artificial intelligence?” Nell Minow said.

　　As of the close of U.S. stocks on October 20, Twitter rose 1.18% to close at $52.44, with a market value of $40.1 billion.