Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized to Twitter employees Saturday morning for growing the company too fast, which led to the current moment where new CEO Elon Musk has now laid off roughly half the company.
Dorsey’s comments come after Musk laid off 3,700 people on Friday in an email from the company’s workforce of 7,500 employees.
“Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient,” Dorsey said. “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.”
“I am grateful for, and love, everyone who has ever worked on Twitter,” he continued. “I don’t expect that to be mutual in this moment…or ever…and I understand.”
I am grateful for, and love, everyone who has ever worked on Twitter. I don't expect that to be mutual in this moment…or ever…and I understand. 💙
— jack (@jack) November 5, 2022
The comments from Dorsey come while Musk faces enormous pressure to turn the social media platform around, which has not been profitable for years.
The New York Times noted that not only does Musk have to worry about an economy that is slowing down, many advertisers, which comprise the overwhelming source of the company’s revenue, have paused their spending on the platform as far-left groups push companies to abandon Twitter over a lack of content moderation.
The world’s richest man, who said he bought the company for $44 billion in order to reserve a corner of the public square for open dialogue and free expression, induced leftist ire after he officially took over the platform last week. Musk said that a number of advertisers have ended their relationships with the company over the past several days, dealing a significant blow to the business.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk tweeted. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Musk later said that he would publicly blast the companies that are leaving his platform.
“A thermonuclear name & shame is exactly what will happen if this continues,” he tweeted.
A number of leftist-aligned organizations, including Media Matters for America, the NAACP, the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, recently wrote a letter to the executives of major advertisers, calling on them to “cease all advertising” if Musk backs down from content moderation.
“Not only are extremists celebrating Musk’s takeover of Twitter, they are seeing it as a new opportunity to post the most abusive, harassing, and racist language and imagery,” the organizations alleged. “This includes clear threats of violence against people with whom they disagree. Without deliberate efforts by Twitter to address this type of abuse and hate, your brands will be actively supporting accelerating extremism.”
Ben Zeisloft contributed to this report.