A number one Twitter investor has backed job cuts on the firm, amid experiences that new proprietor Elon Musk may minimize about half the 7,500-strong workforce.
Changpeng Zhao, the chief govt and founding father of Binance, mentioned “a slimmer workforce would make extra sense” on the social media platform. The cryptocurrency trade has invested $500m (£441m) in Twitter as a part of Musk’s $44bn takeover, which accomplished final week and has been adopted by a stream of adjustments and mooted overhauls of the corporate ever since.
In line with the newest experiences, within the Verge and on Bloomberg in a single day, Musk is planning to chop about 3,800 jobs, with affected employees on the San Francisco-based firm to be instructed as quickly as Friday.
Zhao mentioned on Thursday, earlier than the Verge and Bloomberg experiences have been revealed, that Twitter has been too sluggish in rolling out new options underneath its earlier possession.
“I do really feel that Twitter, given the 7,500 individuals they’ve, the quantity of recent options which have been rolled out is sort of sluggish,” mentioned Zhao, a common person of the platform with 7.2 million followers.
Zhao, talking on the annual Internet Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, added that the pace with which the platform has addressed issues akin to spam accounts – a bugbear of Musk’s – has additionally been too sluggish.
“Quite simple issues [haven’t] been actually applied in a short time, given the big workforce,” he mentioned, referring to options akin to an edit button, which is now being trialled amongst subscribers to Twitter’s premium Blue service within the US. “So a slimmer workforce would make extra sense.”
Nevertheless, Zhao mentioned he “didn’t know for certain” what Musk’s plans have been relating to job reductions however he trusted that “he’ll do the correct factor for the organisation”.
Zhao mentioned he had determined to put money into Twitter regardless of not having met Musk in particular person owing to the Covid pandemic.
“I belief him by popularity for certain. He’s a robust entrepreneur,” mentioned Zhao, including that he works with many individuals he has by no means met.
Twitter has been contacted for remark.
