Jack Dorsey apologizes for Twitter growth after Elon Musk bought company
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One day after new owner and CEO Elon Musk began reducing Twitter’s workforce by an estimated 50 percent, co-founder Jack Dorsey is apologizing for the situation that led to mass layoffs and said he is to blame for growing the company “too quickly.”
“I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in the situation,” Dorsey tweeted Saturday.
Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment. I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.
— jack (@jack) November 5, 2022
The layoffs appear to have cut across the entire company of 7,500 workers, devastating or in some cases wiping out the teams responsible for human rights, security, curation and engineering. Amid Friday’s chaotic mass layoff, the platform was heavy with tweets from newly pink-slipped employees — some of whom said they learned their fate the night before because their email logins no longer worked.
Employees tweeted notes of sadness, gratitude and shock, with many using the hashtag #lovewhereyouworked, a riff on the company’s unofficial motto “Love where you work.” Another hashtag, #TwitterLayoffs, quickly became the top of trends in the United States on Friday.
Dorsey’s mea culpa comes at a critical juncture for the company, which is one week into a turbulent new era under Musk’s leadership that kicked off with him firing the executive leadership, including the CEO, Parag Agrawal. Advertisers and users wary of Musk’s plans are fleeing the platform, which is under new pressure to grow revenue.
In response, Musk has floated ideas that include making users pay for the badges that identify them as a verified account. Musk has also expressed a vision of “free speech” on the platform that has civil rights groups and information experts worried that the platform will become a haven for hate speech, misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Musk used his own Twitter account to amplify a conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), to his more than 113 million followers. He later withdrew the tweet.
Dorsey, who at times had his own freewheeling approach to leadership, abruptly stepped down as CEO last November. Dorsey for a time served simultaneously as CEO for Twitter and Square, the online payment system, and he remains head of the latter. After Twitter’s $44 billion sale to Musk this fall, Dorsey retained a 2.4 percent share in Twitter, according to an October filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
