In conversations with bankers before he made Twitter private, Elon Musk suggested cutting employees, inviting influencers to create content, and introducing subscription services to improve Twitter results, according to several news outlets on Friday. Musk also suggested generating revenue from tweets and cutting the salaries of executives and boards, according to reports from the Bloomberg, Washington Post and Reuters, all citing anonymous sources who knew about his fundraising efforts. Musk approached the bankers after announcing his takeover bid on April 14 and before Twitter’s board accepted his $ 44 billion offer on April 26, Reuters reported. Although Musk outlined these ideas to bankers to improve Twitter results, he did not include them in the official plans presented to the Twitter board, Bloomberg and the Post reported. Instead, he said he would ensure the deal was profitable, sources told Bloomberg. Despite the lack of details, lenders are still living up to Musk’s vision because the billionaire already has a lot of valuable assets that could be useful when taking out loans for the deal, the Post reported. Musk’s behind-the-scenes conversations about the substance contradict his public statements about the market on Twitter. Twitter “is not a way to make money,” Musk said at a live event on April 14, adding: “I’m not interested in finances at all.” Musk has avoided sharing specific plans for the social networking platform. All he has said publicly is that he plans to add an “edit” feature, remove spam bots, open Twitter algorithm to make changes, and loosen content monitoring on the site. Musk’s proposal to lay off employees is likely to add to the concern that Twitter employees have felt since the news of Musk’s offer was made public. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said no layoffs were planned this week, but some employees were already looking for a way out, Insider’s Kali Hays said.
