Twitter CEO Elon Musk has offered the social-media company's employees stock grants at a valuation of nearly $20 billion, the Information reported on Saturday, citing a person familiar with an email Musk sent to Twitter staff.
The reported valuation is less than half of the $44 billion
that Musk paid to acquire the social media platform, pointing to a drop in
Twitter's value.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a Reuters' emailed
request for a comment.
Musk said in December that Twitter is on track to be
"roughly cash flow break-even" in 2023 as top advertisers slashed
their spending on the social-media platform after the billionaire' s takeover.
Earlier this month, the European Union reportedly told Musk
to hire more human moderators and fact-checkers to review posts on Twitter,
following talks between Musk, Twitter executives and regulators in Brussels.
The demand complicates Musk's efforts to reorganise the
loss-making business he acquired for $44 billion in October. He has slashed
more than half of Twitter's 7,500 staff, including the entire trust and safety
teams in some offices, while seeking cheaper methods to monitor tweets, the
report said.
The massive layoffs have raised concerns if Twitter can
comply with the EU's Digital Services Act that requires Internet platforms to
put specific measures in place against illegal content, before the law comes
into full effect in early 2024.
Twitter has been leaning heavily on automation to moderate
content, doing away with certain manual reviews. It does not employ fact
checkers, unlike larger rival Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and
Instagram, the report said. © Reuters