Sources: during Twitter deal negotiations, Elon Musk said he would be focused on the company's bottom line and floated the idea of cutting both costs and jobs

As he negotiated a $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter Inc., Elon Musk told bankers that he would be focused …

Bloomberg 2022-04-29

Context & Ripple Effects

Musk’s financing pitch to Morgan Stanley and 11 other banks already included ideas to reshape Twitter’s business and boost revenue; the cost-and-jobs discussion makes clear that the lender case paired monetization with a leaner operating model. On the same day, reporting also described tweet-monetization ideas presented to banks, rather than a strategy centered on one revenue lever.

Twitter subsequently warned in a filing that the bid itself could impair employee retention and productivity. Later documents describing a potential much deeper workforce reduction show how early cost discipline became central to the acquisition narrative.

First-order effects

Twitter employees face immediate uncertainty around roles and spending priorities as Musk signals to deal financiers that payroll and operating costs are candidates for reduction.
Banks backing Musk’s bid must evaluate Twitter’s financing case against both proposed cost cuts and the separate monetization initiatives presented to them.

Second-order effects

Twitter’s ability to retain key staff becomes part of the transaction’s operating risk, potentially constraining the product and business changes Musk was discussing with lenders.
Cost reductions raise the pressure on new monetization proposals to contribute quickly, because Twitter’s financial plan is being framed around lower expenses as well as higher revenue.

Third-order effects

The coverage points to an acquisition model in which leveraged buyers justify control through simultaneous restructuring and revenue experimentation, shifting execution risk onto workforce stability and product delivery.
If that model is sustained, social-platform ownership may be judged less by continuity of operations than by how quickly a new owner can reset costs while building new revenue streams.

The trend: Twitter’s deal coverage is one instance of a broader buyer playbook that combines aggressive cost restructuring with direct experiments in platform monetization.

Discussion

@michaeldell Michael Dell on x
Here are the similarities and differences between @elonmusk take private of @Twitter and our @Dell take private in 2013 and @EMC take private in 2016 1/137 🧵
@carnage4life @carnage4life on x
Every day on Twitter being about Elon Musk takes me back to the Trump presidency. I just want it to end. https://twitter.com/...
@ishaantharoor Ishaan Tharoor on x
Still marveling at how hilarious this is. Just straight up acknowledgement that Musk Twitter will keep bowing to dictatorships and autocrats who bend the judicial process to censor or stifle dissent. But I bet he will complain more about EU laws on hate speech. https://twitter.co…
@reckless Nilay Patel on x
There isn't a celebrity in the world that's going to post *more* on Twitter, which is already toxic, if there's looser content moderation. They are all too smart and too savvy now, and want absolute control. Especially Taylor lol https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/…
@kairyssdal Kai Ryssdal on x
New but not unexpected. https://twitter.com/...
@dudejohan Johan Moreno on x
I never believed Elon when he said “he doesn't care about the economics of acquiring Twitter.” If he is willing to gamble his fortune on Twitter, there has to be a pathway to profitability/sustainability to make it worth his time. https://twitter.com/...
@ivanthek @ivanthek on x
Pure speculation on my part: The bankers weren't motivated by a business plan from a guy who had no due diligence access to the company. They just nodded their heads and opened their wallets because they didn't want to be excluded from the deal. https://twitter.com/...
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Kinda thought this was assumed. Company gonna have big new debt to service, and isn't yet profitable. https://twitter.com/...
@lopezlinette Linette Lopez on x
He can fire all the content moderators he wants, but that still won't save this business if it's paying $1B of interest on debt from this deal every year. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@goldman Jason Goldman on x
There is of course a nuanced debate to be had about content moderation but right now we've reset the clock about 15 years as folks fumble through a first principles approach. And that makes dunking very easy but makes the risk of real harm very high.
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@WholeMarsBlog No further TSLA sales planned after today
@somebadideas Aaron Stewart-Ahn on x
Musk's big plan to monetize twitter that got his absurd loan: charging a fee for quote / embedding tweets?? That's easier to defeat than right click saving an NFT? From https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@paultassi Paul Tassi on x
this is, no exaggeration, one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard as someone who embeds tweets in articles now, to get around this you'd just...screenshot the tweet, or quote the text with a link to the tweet https://twitter.com/...
@nycsouthpaw @nycsouthpaw on x
The genius plan is you will write the tweet and then Elon Musk will charge Jeff Bezos $0.08 to embed it on the Washington Post's website. https://twitter.com/...
@icehockeystick Jashvina Shah on x
This is dumb and if anyone gets money from their tweets being embedded, IT SHOULD BE THE PEOPLE WHO WROTE THEM https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@eriqgardner Eriq Gardner on x
Maybe they should have ran Musk's acquisition of Twitter past a copyright lawyer. I'm skeptical of this idea, though as I said on @MattBelloni podcast, there may be other revenue-generating schemes like using the platform to serve legal papers on someone. https://www.reuters.com/…
@stribs @stribs on x
“charging a fee for quoting or embedding tweets” So basically taking a flamethrower to some of the features which made Twitter successful https://twitter.com/...
@austinflack Austin Flack on x
This has Boring Company written all over it. https://twitter.com/...
@dylanreeve Dylan Reeve on x
If making Twitter profitable were as simple as charging some people to do some stuff, then it would already be consistently profitable. https://twitter.com/...
@marypcbuk Mary Branscombe on x
So free speech is paid for? https://twitter.com/...
@edbott Ed Bott on x
“Musk's pitch to the banks constituted his vision rather than firm commitments, the sources said, and the exact cost cuts he will pursue once he owns Twitter remain unclear. The plan he outlined to banks was thin on detail, the sources added.” LOL https://twitter.com/...
@proforganizer Julie Bestry on x
And why wouldn't we just take screenshots and embed them instead? https://twitter.com/...
@stand_for_all Daniel Sohege on x
As someone whose tweets get used, often without asking, in a lot of articles how about this idea? We find out how much Musk is charging and you can contact me directly and I will re-write them for you more cheaply? https://twitter.com/...
@wavesblog @wavesblog on x
Our tweets and also intellectual interactions with others are the product - paid speech. https://twitter.com/...
@davoyager @davoyager on x
Would invite endless litigation. Who owns a tweet, Twitter or the author. Will Musk pay residuals if people pickup a tweet and it goes viral? Can of worms https://twitter.com/...
@venkatananth Venkat Ananth on x
“Musk has also lined a up a new chief executive for Twitter, one of the sources added, declining to name the identity of that person.” https://www.reuters.com/... (if this deal goes through, and there's some way to go yet, my bet is on well...jack dorsey 🤡)
@societyofhonor @societyofhonor on x
He's getting no monetizing from me, for sure. I don't pay for games or apps or click on ads and I'm surely not paying for Musk's arrogance and greed. https://twitter.com/...
@omarjsakr Omar Sakr on x
Another swing and a miss from the “free speech” lover — literally erasing the free part lmao https://twitter.com/...
@peterkwells Peter Wells on x
I have a mental image of copyright lawyers, businesses that sell automated enforcement tools, and ppl who argue that individuals own property rights in the data they create online all rubbing their hands in glee https://twitter.com/...
@peeotus8 @peeotus8 on x
LOL! .@elonmusk to his banker: “I can totally service the debt if I charge a nickel for every time users type in the wrong password.” https://twitter.com/...
@econreporter @econreporter on x
🌝 “ new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral, the sources said. Ideas he brought up included charging a fee when a third-party website wants to quote or embed a tweet from verified individuals or organizations.” https://twitter.com/...
@tomwarren Tom Warren on x
every website will just screenshot tweets instead of embedding them 🙃 https://twitter.com/...
@ppavnr @ppavnr on x
Really held out hope that he could make the platform better but his plans are in a straight downward direction. https://twitter.com/...
@ianbetteridge Ian Betteridge on x
The fact that banks listened to this tosh and thought “hmm, yes, this guy sounds like he's got a great business idea” tells you everything about how smart banks are. They do more due diligence loaning a pizza shop £5k for a new oven than lending a rich man billions for a new toy.…
@business_today @business_today on x
.@elonmusk told banks that he could crack down on executive & board pay at Twitter in a push to slash costs, and would develop new ways to monetize tweets: Sources https://www.businesstoday.in/ ...
@kirbeep @kirbeep on x
Actually I take it all back — it's going to be hilarious watching Elon ruin Twitter and lose billions in the process https://twitter.com/...
@upulie @upulie on x
Do we get paid for the content we produce https://twitter.com/...
@tyleraking Tyler King on x
Attempts to prevent screenshots, right-clicks, and copy/paste across the web burned bright and brief in the mid-'00s and I sincerely invite him to try. https://twitter.com/...
@andyboxall Andy Boxall on x
Wouldn't charging third parties to embed/quote popular tweets just make Twitter a less attractive place to share or find news? It's free to link to a press release, a company blog, or an Instagram post. 🤷‍♂️ https://twitter.com/...
@readkrystalhu Krystal Hu on x
To secure the loan to buy Twitter, @elonmusk gave a simple pitch to banks: cut costs & grow revenue One interesting idea from his pitch: monetizing tweets by charging a third-party platform for embedding or quoting a tweet, sources told me tip @Techmeme https://www.reuters.com/..…
@alexhern @alexhern on x
It is extremely funny that musk's first big idea is so transparently based on his own incredibly weird experience of twitter. “Whenever I tweet, people write news articles about it. Therefore, there's value on charging newspapers to write about tweets” https://twitter.com/...
@karissabe Karissa Bell on x
I guess if you've watched literally thousands of articles get written about your insane tweets you might start thinking they are actually valuable https://twitter.com/...
@davidrlurie @davidrlurie on x
Leaving all the policy debates aside, the question is whether Musk — after borrowing huge sums to buy Twitter — take on the financial risk to turning Twitter into a hellscape of trolls and abusers that drives away users and advertisers, in order to prove he's not “woke.” https://…
@mvpeers Martin Peers on x
Those pesky questions about Musk's initial 13G Twitter filing are surfacing with Lina Khan's FTC, @joshua_sisco & @jtoonkel report in scoop https://www.theinformation.com/ ...
@joshua_sisco Josh Sisco on x
It took Elon Musk, but I got a story about the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976 into The Information. https://twitter.com/...
@joshua_sisco Josh Sisco on x
Scoop: Elon Musk's early Twitter investment under scrutiny over possible failure to report the purchases to antitrust regulators. w/ @jtoonkel https://www.theinformation.com/ ...

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