Elon Musk: Twitter Almost In Break Even Point After Carrying Out Massive Cost Cuts And Layoffs

Elon Musk during an interview with the BBC (photo: screenshot/ary)

JAKARTA - Twitter Inc CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday, April 12 that the social media company is "close to breaking even," as most advertisers have returned and aggressive cost-cutting efforts are starting to pay off following mass layoffs.

Musk, in an interview with the BBC, broadcast live on Twitter Spaces, said Twitter has about 1,500 employees now. This is a sharp drop from the "nearly 8,000 staff members" he had before he took over the social media platform last October.

Twitter has been marked by chaos and uncertainty since Musk's $44 billion acquisition, as mass layoffs also included many engineers responsible for repairs and preventing service disruptions, sources told Reuters.

Last week, Twitter ran into a bug that prevented thousands of users from accessing the link, it's the sixth major outage since earlier this year, according to internet watchdog group NetBlocks.

Musk acknowledged some mistakes, including the latest breakdown, but said they weren't lasting.

He said Twitter was in a $3 billion negative cash flow situation and had to take drastic action, referring to mass layoffs on a large scale.

"This quarter we could be cash flow positive if things go well," Musk said in the interview that attracted more than 3 million listeners. He added that the company currently has the highest number of users of all time.

But in fact, Twitter has been hit by a huge drop in advertising since its acquisition by Musk.

Musk has said that is due to the cyclical nature of ad spending and some of it is "political." He said last Wednesday that most advertisers had returned.

The billionaire, who also runs electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, said he has no one in mind to replace him as CEO of Twitter.

Musk has faced scrutiny from Tesla investors about the amount of time he spends running the social media platform and previously said later this year would be the "right time" to seek a new Twitter CEO.