Twitter chief executive Parag Agrawal announced a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting efforts on Thursday, a reflection of the company’s state of uncertainty while it awaits Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover.
The company will not hire new employees and may rescind offers already out, an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg showed. Some exceptions will be made for business-critical roles, as determined by Twitter leadership.
The company is also pulling back on costs such as travel, consulting and marketing, the memo said.
Mr Agrawal said global events, including the war in Ukraine and the supply chain crunch, have hurt Twitter’s business results and may continue to do so.
Company-wide job cuts are not planned, “but leaders will continue making changes to their organisations to improve efficiencies as needed”, Mr Agrawal wrote.
“At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the decision was made to invest aggressively to deliver big growth in audience and revenue, and as a company we did not hit intermediate milestones that enable confidence in these goals,” Mr Agrawal said.
“In order to responsibly manage the organisation as we sharpen our road maps and our work, we need to continue to be intentional about our teams, hiring and costs.”
Two of Twitter’s top leaders are also departing: Kayvon Beykpour, head of consumer product, and Bruce Falck, in charge of revenue, are both leaving the company.
Jay Sullivan will take over as head of product and interim head of revenue. Mr Sullivan has talked about refocusing the company on fewer projects during recent team- and company-wide meetings, a person familiar with the matter said.
Mr Beykpour said on Twitter that it’s not how he imagined leaving the company.
“Parag asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction,” he said.
A Twitter representative didn’t respond to a request for comment.
As Mr Musk does not yet own Twitter, he is not yet directly influencing the company’s decision-making. Larger competitor Meta also recently said it will reduce planned expenditures.
The changes reflect Twitter’s current state of limbo while it awaits a new owner. Mr Musk, the world’s richest man and chief executive of Tesla, agreed to buy the company for $44 billion last month, but the deal may not be finalised for months, as he is still working to secure the financing.
On Tuesday, he suggested that the deal could still fall apart.
That has left Twitter employees in the lurch, as many do not know whether the projects or teams they are working on will be prioritised under new leadership.
England's lowest Test innings
- 45 v Australia in Sydney, January 28, 1887
- 46 v West Indies in Port of Spain, March 25, 1994
- 51 v West Indies in Kingston, February 4, 2009
- 52 v Australia at The Oval, August 14, 1948
- 53 v Australia at Lord's, July 16, 1888
- 58 v New Zealand in Auckland, March 22, 2018
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What is a robo-adviser?
Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
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SPEC SHEET
Display: 6.8" edge quad-HD dynamic Amoled 2X, Infinity-O, 3088 x 1440, 500ppi, HDR10 , 120Hz
Processor: 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1/Exynos 2200, 8-core
Memory: 8/12GB RAM
Storage: 128/256/512GB/1TB
Platform: Android 12
Main camera: quad 12MP ultra-wide f/2.2, 108MP wide f/1.8, 10MP telephoto f/4.9, 10MP telephoto 2.4; Space Zoom up to 100x, auto HDR, expert RAW
Video: 8K@24fps, 4K@60fps, full-HD@60fps, HD@30fps, super slo-mo@960fps
Front camera: 40MP f/2.2
Battery: 5000mAh, fast wireless charging 2.0 Wireless PowerShare
Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC
I/O: USB-C
SIM: single nano, or nano and SIM, nano and nano, eSIM/nano and nano
Colours: burgundy, green, phantom black, phantom white, graphite, sky blue, red
Price: Dh4,699 for 128GB, Dh5,099 for 256GB, Dh5,499 for 512GB; 1TB unavailable in the UAE
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
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Western Region Asia Cup T20 Qualifier
Sun Feb 23 – Thu Feb 27, Al Amerat, Oman
The two finalists advance to the Asia qualifier in Malaysia in August
Group A
Bahrain, Maldives, Oman, Qatar
Group B
UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
