Bloomberg | | Posted by Shobhit Gupta
Twitter Inc. has shut two of its three India places of work and informed its workers to make money working from home, underscoring Elon Musk’s mission to slash prices and get the struggling social media service within the black.
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Twitter, which fired greater than 90% of its roughly 200-plus workers in India late final yr, closed its places of work within the political heart New Delhi and monetary hub of Mumbai, individuals conscious of the matter stated. The corporate continues to function an workplace within the southern tech hub of Bengaluru that largely homes engineers, the individuals stated, declining to be recognized as the data is non-public.
Billionaire Chief Govt Officer Musk has fired workers and shut places of work world wide as a part of an effort to get Twitter financially secure by late 2023. But India is considered a key development marketplace for US tech giants from Meta Platforms Inc. to Alphabet Inc.’s Google, that are making long-term bets on the world’s fastest-growing web area. Musk’s newest strikes suggests he’s attaching much less significance to the marketplace for now.
Twitter has developed in previous years into one among India’s most vital public boards, house to heated political discourse and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 86.5 million followers. But income there isn’t vital for Musk’s firm, which additionally has to take care of strict content material laws and more and more savvy native competitors.
Twitter didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
An exodus of employees — a lot of whom had been fired — since Musk’s acquisition has raised issues about whether or not Twitter can maintain its operations and regulate content material. Musk this week stated he might have until the tip of the yr to stabilize the corporate and ensure it’s financially wholesome.
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For the reason that $44 billion buyout, Twitter has did not pay thousands and thousands of {dollars} in lease for its San Francisco headquarters and London places of work, been sued by a number of contractors over unpaid companies, and auctioned off every part from hen statues to espresso machines to boost cash.
Musk has additionally overtly floated the thought of chapter, and cited a “huge drop” in income as advertisers fled over issues about Twitter’s potential to weed out undesirable content material. The platform has additionally skilled vital glitches and outrages, most not too long ago simply this month.