Twitter could go bankrupt, Musk warns employees

Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner and newly CEO, revealed to employees in a mass call that bankruptcy of the social media should not be ruled out. The announcement comes hours after a mass e-mail, in which Musk warned that the company might not “survive the upcoming economic downturn” if it fails to boost subscription revenue to offset the diminishing income from advertising.

Reuters reports that the disarray in Twitter was also fueled by the exit of key executives, including the Chief Information Security Officer and Yoel Roth, the Head of Trust & Safety.

Roth was overseeing Twitter’s response to hate speech, misinformation and spam, and now his Twitter account bio reveals he is a “Former Head” at the company. The Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer also left, according to an internal Slack message. One person that decided to stay at least for now is Robin Wheeler, the company’s top ad executive.

The US Federal Trade Commission is watching Twitter with “deep concern”, after the privacy and compliance executives left the company. These exits put the social media at risk of violating regulatory orders, but Musk’s attorney Alex Spiro revealed the team is having “a constructive ongoing dialogue” on the matter.

The reason the FTC is tracking the development at Twitter is that social media already misused personal information, such as phone numbers that were given to advertisers. However, Spiro tried to calm the situation, saying “Elon puts rockets into space, he’s not afraid of the FTC” without clarifying the connection between the two.

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