SAN FRANCISCO — Twitter is facing an exodus of executives and skittish advertisers as Elon Musk and his advisers take control of the social media company, prepare to lay off employees, and make changes to the product.
At least three top Twitter executives — including the chief customer officer, the head of people and diversity, and an engineering executive — have departed the company in recent days, according to three people with knowledge of the matter and public statements. Two announced their departures on Twitter on Monday but did not say why they quit. More executives may leave in the coming days, the people said.
At the same time, advertisers — who provide about 90 percent of Twitter’s revenue — are increasingly grappling with Musk’s ownership of the platform. The billionaire, who is meeting advertising executives in New York this week, has spooked some advertisers because he has said he would loosen Twitter’s content rules, which could lead to a surge in misinformation and other toxic content.
IPG, one of the world’s largest advertising companies with more than $9 billion in net revenue last year, issued a recommendation Monday through its media agencies for clients to temporarily pause their spending on Twitter because of moderation concerns, three people with knowledge of the communication said. The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of platforms, advertisers and industry groups that is fighting harmful content on social media, also said this week that it was monitoring how Twitter planned to deal with content moderation.
Twitter has been in disarray as the company adjusts to a new reality under Musk, who closed his $44 billion buyout of the firm last week. Musk immediately fired Twitter’s CEO, chief financial officer and others, before moving quickly to install close confidants and trusted engineers from his other companies at the social media firm.
Since then, Musk and his advisers have been working on product changes and major cuts to Twitter’s rank and file. Managers at Twitter, which has about 7,500 employees, have said they are finalizing lists of high- and low-performing workers, most likely with an eye toward layoffs. While several employees have already been let go, the timing and scope of mass layoffs remain fluid.
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. IPG did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A reporter for the tech and finance newsletter Morning Brew earlier tweeted IPG’s recommendation.
The executives who left Twitter in recent days include Sarah Personette, the chief customer officer who managed the company’s relationships with advertisers; Dalana Brand, the head of people and diversity; and Nick Caldwell, the executive responsible for core technologies like infrastructure. Their exits leave Twitter with few of the leaders it had before Musk closed the deal to own the company.
Personette met Musk last week to discuss Twitter’s advertising partnerships, she said in a tweet. After the meeting with Personette, Musk published an open letter to advertisers, saying that Twitter would not become a “free-for-all hellscape.” He also said Twitter would form a council to advise on content moderation.
Bloomberg reported that Twitter has frozen some employee access to internal tools used for content moderation and other policy enforcement, curbing the staff’s ability to clamp down on misinformation ahead of the midterm elections next week.
Most people who work in Twitter’s Trust and Safety organization are currently unable to alter or penalize accounts that break rules around misleading information, offensive posts, and hate speech, Bloomberg reported, except for the most high-impact violations that would involve real-world harm, according to people familiar with the matter. Those posts were prioritized for manual enforcement, they said.
People who were on call to enforce Twitter’s policies during Brazil’s presidential election did get access to the internal tools on Sunday, but in a limited capacity, according to two of the people. The company is still utilizing automated enforcement technology, and third-party contractors, according to one person, though the highest-profile violations are typically reviewed by Twitter employees.
The scaled-back content moderation has raised concerns among employees on Twitter’s Trust and Safety team, who believe the company will be short-handed in enforcing policies in the run-up to the midterm election on Nov. 8. Trust and Safety employees are often tasked with enforcing Twitter’s misinformation and civic integrity policies — many of the same policies that former President Donald Trump routinely violated before and after the 2020 elections, the company said at the time.
On Friday and Saturday, Bloomberg reported a surge in hate speech on Twitter. That included a 1,700 percent spike in the use of a racist slur on the platform, which at its peak appeared 215 times every five minutes, according to data from Dataminr, an official Twitter partner that has access to the entire platform. The Trust and Safety team did not have access to enforce Twitter’s moderation policies during this time, two people said.
IPG’s recommendation on pausing spending on Twitter follows an announcement from General Motors, which last week said it was temporarily suspending its advertising on Twitter. GM is a competitor of Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla. IPG, a holding company with several agencies handling advertising spending, has clients such as American Express, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel, and Spotify. Its Mediabrands division manages roughly $40 billion in marketing investment globally.
On Tuesday, Musk said the premium version of Twitter, called Blue, will cost $8 a month and will include a verified check mark for paying users’ accounts.