Elon Musk to address Twitter staff and take questions this week

It will be the first time the Tesla chief executive has met Twitter workers after his $44bn deal to acquire the platform

Elon Musk is scheduled to speak to Twitter employees on Thursday. AFP

Elon Musk will address Twitter employees at a company meeting this week, the first time the Tesla chief executive will meet workers after agreeing to buy the company for $44 billion in April, sources said.

The online meeting is scheduled for Thursday morning, and Mr Musk will take questions from Twitter employees, the sources said.

Twitter has been in disarray since the deal was announced.

Many employees are unhappy with Mr Musk, who has been openly critical of the company, its products and its policies.

Chief executive Parag Agrawal has also made changes to the top of Twitter‘s product organisation and announced cost-cutting measures since April.

In recent weeks, Mr Musk has questioned whether Twitter‘s user base is as big as the company claims, suggesting that Twitter has a big problem with spam bots.

At times it has also appeared as though Mr Musk is trying to use the alleged bot issue to renegotiate his deal, but Twitter executives have told employees they plan to enforce the agreement.

The Washington Post last week cited a source as saying Twitter's board had decided to let Mr Musk gain access to its full “fire hose” of internal data associated with the hundreds of millions of tweets posted daily at the service.

“This would end the major standoff between Musk and the board on this hot button issue which has paused the deal,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote on Twitter.

Mr Agrawal has said that fewer than 5 per cent of accounts active on any given day are bots, but that analysis cannot be replicated externally given user data privacy regulations.

_______________________

Elon Musk — in pictures

• 

  Mr Musk unveils a new all-wheel-drive version of the Model S car in Hawthorne, California, in 2014. Reuters

• 

  Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Getty Images

• 

  Mr Musk with music producer Quincy Jones. AFP

• 

  The wealthiest person in the world with a worth of $274.3 billion, Mr Musk was named 'Person of the Year' by 'Time' magazine in 2021. Getty Images

• 

  Focus on Mr Musk's taxes grew last year as Tesla achieved a rarefied $1 trillion in market value. Reuters

• 

  The billionaire has hit back, saying he does not draw a salary from either SpaceX or Tesla, and pays an effective tax rate of 53 per cent on stock options he exercises. AFP

• 

  Then US president Barack Obama speaks to Mr Musk on a tour of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2010. Reuters

• 

  Mr Musk during a television interview after Tesla's initial public offering at the Nasdaq market in New York, in 2010. Reuters

• 

  With former wife Talulah Riley at the 2011 Orange British Academy Film Awards in London. Getty Images

• 

  With Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe after a test drive of the Tesla Model S P85D in Palo Alto, California, in 2015. Reuters

• 

  Mr Musk during the 67th International Astronautics Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2016. EPA

• 

  From left: SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, Corning chief executive Wendell Weeks, then US president Donald Trump and Johnson & Johnson chief executive Alex Gorsky during a meeting at the White House. AFP

• 

  Mr Musk and former wife Grimes at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, in 2018. AFP

• 

  Mr Musk leaves a court in New York City, in 2019, after a hearing in a lawsuit brought against him by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Getty Images

• 

  A prototype of SpaceX's Starship spacecraft is seen before Mr Musk gives an update on the company's Mars rocket Starship in Boca Chica, Texas, in 2019. Reuters

• 

  Mr Musk at the construction site of the Tesla Gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, last year. EPA

• 

  Dancing onstage during a delivery event for Tesla's China-made Model 3 cars in Shanghai. Reuters

• 

  Mikey Day as a lawyer, Cecily Strong as a judge, and host Elon Musk as Wario during the "Wario" sketch on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live', in May. Getty Images

• 

  Mr Musk with Armin Laschet, CDU party federal chairman and prime minister of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia, talk during a tour of the plant of the future foundry of the Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide, near Berlin, Germany. Getty Images