Twitter Inc. is seeing further employee departures, company officials informed staff members on Wednesday, as authorities worked to address a variety of concerns, including claims of whistleblowers and a legal dispute with billionaire Elon Musk.
During a company-wide assembly, Twitter officials informed staff members that the employee turnover rate now stands at 18.3%. Reuters was able to listen in on the audio of this meeting. Attrition was hovering between 14% and 16% prior to Musk making his offer to acquire the company for $44 billion. This was consistent with what competitors had previously indicated to executives of the company.
According to information obtained from current employees, members of staff have left the company as a result of the months-long instability caused by the Musk takeover.
The staff meeting took place one day after Twitter’s former safety chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatko mentioned in a whistleblower complaint that the social media company misled federal regulators about its defences against hackers and spam accounts. Zatko was quoted as saying that Twitter misled federal regulators about its defences against hackers and spam accounts.
In addition, the company, which has its headquarters in San Francisco, is suing Musk for allegedly attempting to back out of the buyout agreement and has scheduled the trial for the month of October.
On Wednesday, Twitter’s Chief Executive Officer, Parag Agrawal, took steps to reassure employees that Zatko’s charges were “foundationally, technically, and historically wrong.”
According to Twitter’s General Counsel Sean Edgett, the company contacted “several authorities” throughout the world prior to the material being public.
It was noted that “We have never committed a substantial misstatement to a regulator, to our board, or to all of you,” which was something that was spoken by him.
During the assembly, employees of Twitter posed questions to the leaders of the company about the following topics: whether or not Twitter would hire or promote additional junior staff members; how Twitter might be anticipated to hit its growth targets given the worker exodus; and whether or not Twitter would hire or promote additional senior staff members.
Agrawal’s response was, “The only way for us to deliver is by restricting our attention to fewer things, and for that to be commensurate to the amount of people here.”
Jay Sullivan, Twitter’s common supervisor for shopper and income product, provided early particulars of a brand new challenge to contemplate methods of letting customers have more management over the content that they see on Twitter. The mission of this new challenge is to think about methods of letting customers have extra management over the content that they see on Twitter. According to Sullivan, the brand new project will combine the philosophy into product road maps. The idea of providing users more control helps shape Twitter’s work on content moderation; however, the new project will incorporate the philosophy into product roadmaps.
Twitter did not respond to a request for more comment that was sent to them.
On Wednesday, the US Senate Judiciary Committee said that it will convene a hearing with Zatko on September 13, the same day that Twitter shareholders would vote on whether or not to accept the deal with Musk. Zatko is scheduled to testify before the committee.
Additionally on Wednesday, attorneys for Twitter and Musk attended a hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, to determine whether or not Twitter was required to provide Musk with the documentation and information he requested in order to challenge the company’s estimates of the number of spam accounts on its platform. The counsel for Musk provided a short discussion on the claims made by Zatko.
At the conclusion of the hearing that took place on Wednesday, the judge said that she will take into consideration all sides of the case before rendering a decision.