Changpeng Zhao, CEO and founder of Binance, said “a leaner workforce would make more sense” on the social networking platform. The cryptocurrency exchange has invested $500m (£441m) in Twitter as part of Musk’s $44bn buyout, which was completed last week and has since been followed by a series of changes and overhauls of the company. According to the latest reports in The Verge and Bloomberg overnight, Musk plans to cut around 3,800 jobs, with affected staff at the San Francisco-based company to be notified on Friday. Zhao said Thursday, before the Verge and Bloomberg reports were published, that Twitter had been too slow to roll out new features under its previous ownership. “I think Twitter, given the 7,500 people it has, the number of new features that have come out is quite slow,” said Zhao, a regular user of the platform with 7.2 million followers. Zhao, speaking at the annual Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, added that the speed with which the platform tackled problems such as spam accounts – a sticking point for Musk – was also too slow. Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Binance. Photo: Piaras Ó Midheach/Sportsfile for Web Summit/Getty Images “Very simple things [haven’t] it was really rolled out very quickly given the large workforce,” he said, referring to features like an edit button, which is now being tested among subscribers to Twitter’s premium Blue service in the US. “So a leaner workforce would make more sense.” However, Zhao said he “didn’t know for sure” what Musk’s plans were regarding the job cuts, but believed he would “do the right thing for the organization.” Zhao said he decided to invest in Twitter despite not having met Musk in person due to the Covid pandemic. Subscribe to Business Today Get ready for the business day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “I trust him by reputation for sure. He is a strong businessman,” Zhao said, adding that he works with many people he has never met. Twitter has been contacted for comment.
