We're hiring, says Elon Musk; Twitter 2.0 to have payments feature

Twitter is hiring, according to slides from a company talk tweeted by owner Elon Musk, following sweeping job reductions in a cost-cutting drive since the billionaire took over the social network.

The first slide had the words “We’re recruiting” with no further details. Musk, who didn’t say when he gave the talk, has undertaken a dramatic restructuring that initially cut the firm’s headcount in half.

Hate speech impressions on the social network are lower and reported impersonations have fallen, according to the slides which cited data with mid-November dates.

Musk, who also runs rocket company SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling firm the Boring Company, has said that buying Twitter would speed up his ambition to create an “everything app”called X.

His “Twitter 2.0 The Everything App” will have features like encrypted direct messages (DMs), longform tweets and payments, according to the tweet.

In another tweet early on Sunday, Musk said he sees a “path to Twitter exceeding a billion monthly users in 12 to 18 months.”

Meanwhile, Musk says new user signups to the social media platform are at an “all-time high”, as he struggles with a mass exodus of advertisers and users fleeing to other platforms over concerns about verification and hate speech.

Signups were averaging over two million per day in the last seven days as of November 16, up 66 per cent compared to the same week in 2021, Musk said in a tweet late on Saturday.

He also said that user active minutes were at a record high, averaging nearly 8 billion active minutes per day in the last seven days as of November 15, an increase of 30 per cent in comparison to last year.

Hate speech impersonations decreased as of November 13 compared to October of last year. Reported impersonations on the platform spiked earlier this month, before and in wake of the Twitter Blue launch.

Musk said, Twitter was experiencing a massive drop in revenue from the advertiser retreat, blaming a coalition of civil rights groups that has been pressing the platform’s top advertisers to take action if he did not protect content moderation.

Stephen King: Musk a ‘visionary’ but ‘a terrible fit for Twitter’

Author Stephen King has called out Twitter CEO Elon Musk in a sarcasm-laden tweet. King took to Twitter and wrote, “I think Elon Musk is a visionary. Almost singlehandedly, he’s changed the way Americans think about automobiles.

I have a Tesla and love it. However, he then took a dig at him saying, “That said, he’s been a terrible fit for Twitter. He appears to be making it up as he goes along.”

Musk replied to King's tweet by writing, “Suggestions are welcome.” In a second reply, Musk added, “The goal is a trusted digital town square, where a wide range of views is tolerated, provided people don't break the law or spam. For example, any incitement to violence will result in account suspension.”