Woke Twitter staffers were told Friday that their upcoming bonus checks may be half what they expected due to a punishing second quarter and the costly battle with Elon Musk over his aborted $44 billion takeover bid.
Company CFO Ned Segal sent an email to the companies 7,500 staffers letting them know that the bonus pool has been drained due to a $270 million net loss in the spring.
The company blamed a skittish advertising industry, which accounts for much of the platform’s revenue, that has been hesitant to spend ad dollars because of the economic uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine.
Twitter CFO Ned Segal told staffers that the bonuses this year could be half of what they expected
Twitter lost $270 million in the second quarter of 2022 because of weak ad sales and the aborted takeover bid by Elon Musk
Elon Musk offered to buy the company for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent increase over the stock price at the time
Musk’s flirtation with purchasing the company in April didn’t help the company’s bottom line.
The aerospace and electronic car pioneer created internal turmoil and sent stock prices on a roller coaster ride when he agreed to purchase the company for $54.20 a share, a 38% increase from where the stock stood at the time.
At the time, Musk slammed the social media platform’s woke culture and criticized its policy of suppressing speech.
Twitter’s stock price sank nearly 30 percent since last year due to the aborted takeover bid by Musk and the anemic ad buys on the platform
Then, in July, he pulled out of the deal, tweeting out a poop emoji and complaining about bots and fake accounts on the platform.
In their second quarter statement, Twitter chalked up its financial trouble to ‘advertising industry headwinds associated with the macroenvironment as well as uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk.’
The company sued Musk in federal court, claiming breach of contract, saying he signed a binding contract to buy the company for the premium share price.
Since Musk abandoned the offer, the stock price has dipped nearly 30 percent since last year.
Twitter staff had express resistance to the tech billionaire’s takeover after he promised to loosen the rules on what gets censored on the platform.
The billionaire blasted the ‘extreme antibody reaction’ from ‘those who fear free speech’ and said it ‘says it all’ as he launched his first public backlash against the workers.