Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Twitter executives are reported to have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel bills to be reimbursed before Elon Musk completed its acquisition of Twitter.

But current and former Twitter employees said that when Musk took over, he refused to make payments to travel suppliers. Musk's staff said the services were authorized by the former management of Twitter and had nothing to do with him. Since then, they no longer take calls from travel suppliers.

Musk has been cutting costs aggressively since completing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. He initially halved his Twitter workforce of 7500 and continued to fire and lay off staff until Monday. But according to people familiar with the matter, he is also conducting a comprehensive review of other costs, asking his employees to evaluate and renegotiate agreements and even refuse to pay external suppliers.

Musk and his advisers have set their sights on Twitter's infrastructure, travel, software services, real estate and even the famously generous staff meals. Twitter's spending has fallen, but these moves have sparked resentment among insiders-as have suppliers who have been owed millions of dollars.

Musk's move reflects the financial pressure on Twitter. In the course of his acquisition, the company took on $13 billion in loans, with annual interest payments on the debt of more than $1 billion. Twitter has been in financial trouble for a long time and is often at a loss, unable to compete with competitors such as Facebook and Google that have effectively commercialized advertising products. In order to assess the situation after Musk joined Twitter, some advertisers have suspended spending.

Musk, 51, once told employees that Twitter had a "bad economic outlook" and didn't even rule out bankruptcy.

Mr Musk has yet to comment.

From the promotion of live video to the development of audio chat, previous Twitter leaders have tried other strategies to turn losses into profits. By contrast, Mr Musk's plan is simple and crude. He has brought in a number of cronies from other companies, including Antonio Gracias, former director of electric car company Tesla, Jared Birchall, head of Musk's family office, and Steve Davis, head of Musk's Boring Company tunnel company, whose main job is to scrutinize Twitter's accounts.

Mr Musk's directive is simple: cut spending.

That's an important reason why Twitter launched massive layoffs this month. Behind the scenes, not a single item of expenditure is spared.

Although Twitter's financial staff have been drastically reduced, management is still asking them to comb through the company and individual employee expense reports "line by line", according to people familiar with the matter. They are even explicitly required to ensure that employees and their expenses are "real".

Mr Musk also ordered the postponement or even cancellation of transfers to Twitter suppliers and outsourced services, according to people familiar with the matter. All service expenses are subject to Birchall approval. It is reported that Musk has refused to pay for travel expenses incurred by former Twitter executives.

He is still studying the company's office lease, according to people familiar with the matter. He suspended the payment of rent, hoping to renegotiate the lease or abandon it altogether. Twitter has leased several offices around the world, but the demand for office space has been greatly reduced after layoffs.

Twitter's partner team has been asked to renegotiate multi-year content agreements with large sports institutions, according to people familiar with the matter. Twitter, for example, reached an agreement with the National Football League (NFL) to pay the latter a fee to produce exclusive audio and video content on Twitter. Twitter has reached similar agreements with media companies such as Constance, NBA and Fox Sports Network.

A spokesman for NFL could not be reached for comment.

Davis, president of Boring Company, also asked Twitter employees to renegotiate with computing and technology service providers such as Amazon and Oracle, according to people familiar with the matter. The negotiating position received by these employees was that if the other party refused to renegotiate, they would not be able to continue to work with Musk's company in the future.

An engineering manager said that when Twitter's contract with a software supplier expired after Musk took over, the company cancelled the discount offered to Twitter.

Amazon and Oracle have yet to comment. Boring Company did not respond.

When Musk asked Twitter employees to return to his San Francisco office to meet him last week, some employees expressed concern about using their personal credit cards to book tickets and that they would not be reimbursed. Four current and former Twitter employees revealed that Musk has delayed or refused to pay reimbursement applications submitted by employees several times since he took over.

Musk has terminated other long-term benefits of Twitter. He canceled the free lunch-a benefit that, according to him, costs the company more than $400 "per lunch". (an employee who once worked on a Twitter lunch project refuted Musk's claim. The cafeteria in Twitter's New York office used to serve foods such as grilled shrimp, but on Monday there were only two kinds of macaroni and cheese, plus a salad bar, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Other benefits such as gym, cell phone and Internet access subsidies and child care allowances have also been cut, according to two people familiar with the matter.

People familiar with the matter said that the Musk team, including Mr Musk's private lawyer, Alex Sparrow, had terminated cooperation between Twitter and some outside law firms that had helped former Twitter management deal with 44 billion dollars in takeover lawsuits. Musk was sued by Twitter earlier this year when he tried to abandon his bid for Twitter.

Mr Sparrow has yet to comment.

Some of Twitter's public welfare projects also show signs of giving up halfway. Twitter for Good, the company's philanthropic arm, has lost many employees, and cheques promised to some nonprofits have been withdrawn.

"Elon's attitude is clear that he only wants to make up for the losses caused by his failure to meet his binding obligations to acquire Twitter." An employee wrote on Twitter's internal Slack messaging system this month.

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