Elon Musk, his bloodlust still not satiated after firing half of Twitter’s 11,000 employees, is now slicing and dicing the company’s bloated finances.
The story could begin — and end — with what Musk did when he found dead-ender execs racking up six figures worth of chartered jets right before he bought the company. But the story just keeps getting better, even after that.
So I guess that, technically, the most important snowball in the avalanche of good Twitter news is that Musk will move its headquarters out of San Francisco. He hasn’t said where the new HQ will be located, but given that Musk moved his Tesla HQ and that SpaceX is there, too, Twitter will soon call Texas home.
Best thing for the company, really. The Bay Area’s woke culture is endemic and poisonous. I assume Twitter will move to Austin, which is also quite “progressive.” But at least Austin is a blue dot in a sea of red — not like San Francisco’s blue dot in a sea of big blue blobs.
Already, according to a New York Times report, Musk has stopped paying rent on the SF HQ and all of its global offices, too. Prior to Musk’s buyout, the company was famous for lavish spending on amenities for its bloated (and mostly unneeded) workforce.
Twitter 2.0 is apparently gearing up for legal battles to get the company out of the ruinous leases arranged by previous management.
But wait. It gets better. Much better:
Twitter’s leaders have also discussed the consequences of denying severance payments to thousands of people who have been laid off since the takeover, two people familiar with the talks said. And Mr. Musk has threatened employees with lawsuits if they talk to the media and “act in a manner contrary to the company’s interest,” according to an internal email sent last Friday.
What happens to ex-employees when they break their NDAs? FAFO, as Musk himself has said.
The NYT article paints a picture of a company in “chaos,” to borrow a word the NYT used twice. I see a bloated social media platform getting pared to the bone if it’s going to be saved.
In terms of Twitter’s cultural health, maybe Musk’s best move was on Monday when he dissolved the so-called Trust and Safety Council. Formed in 2016 to combat “hate” or whatever, I warned at the time that the council was essentially Orwellian and would crush free speech.
I had no idea — until Twitter helped squelch the Hunter Biden laptop story and turn an election — just how right I would turn out to be.
For the next #TwitterFiles, Musk has already promised to reveal collusion between Twitter 1.0 and celebrity medical spokesmodel Anthony “Doctor” Fauci to silence dissent about masks, the lockdowns, vaccines, and more.
Now, about those chartered flights…
Can you imagine putting a few tens of thousands of dollars on the company Amex, only to have the bill bounce right back in your lap?
It’s a thing of beauty — and that’s why the progressive Left is going ape-stuff insane.
The New Republic’s Timothy Noah warns that Musk might just the “the worst boss ever.” At the Arizona Republic, EJ Montini frets that Musk is “transforming Twitter into… Arizona!” Sane people might think that’s a good thing, but Montini, who apparently hates his state and his readers, says they’re both full of “Intolerance? Check. Prejudice? Check. Misinformation? Check. Crackpots? Check. Zealots? Check.”
But if you really want to see what a nest of angry, demented bees Musk has made the Left, look no further than famous lefty accounts on Twitter itself.
Elon Musk has turned into late-stage Howard Hughes and his jar of urine is Twitter
— Frank Lesser (@sadmonsters) December 14, 2022
That’s just one example. I won’t bore you with others, since they’re easy enough to find on your own, should you find yourself feeling particularly masochistic.
I should remind you once more that Musk’s first reform was to clear Twitter of its endemic pedophile picture-sharing subculture — and the Left has been mum.
Make of that what you will.
Unrelated, but doused with the same firehose of schadenfreude is the latest from the Washington Post. The paper shredded its own credibility during the Donald Trump years, but now Trump is gone — and so are 500,000 of the paper’s subscribers.
The Washington Post, which has lost 500k subscribers in the past year, has announced layoffs are coming to the paper. The meeting didn’t go well. pic.twitter.com/hOoeyI70jj
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 14, 2022
“Listen to them, the children of the night,” Bram Stroker wrote in a novel about an entirely different kind of bloodsucker. “What music they make!”