Tesla announces company-wide personnel cuts, AT&T has been cleared for its acquisition of media company Time Warner, and Twitter announces new updates to its platform.
First up from Twitter is news that Tesla will be cutting nine per cent of its salaried workforce as part of a difficult but necessary restructuring at the company. Founder and CEO Elon Musk wrote an internal memo on Tuesday morning, and subsequently released it on Twitter in the afternoon, that the company’s rapid growth in recent years has contributed to the duplication of roles. Musk says Tesla will be flattening its management structure to become more streamlined and will strive to become profitable for the first time in its 15-year history. He promised that no line workers will be cut and that production of Tesla’s Model 3 will remain on schedule.
Next, from LinkedIn, a federal US judge ruled that AT&T can complete its purchase of media company Time Warner for just over $85 billion dollars. The takeover was blocked by the Justice Department last year due to anti-trust concerns, but it’s been cleared with no conditions. Oddly enough, while the Justice Department can appeal the decision, Judge Richard Leon said that would be “manifestly unjust” and urged the government to “have the wisdom” to allow the deal to go through. This is a big deal because without net neutrality anymore, giant cable companies and networks can now buy up news organizations and potentially influence their coverage. This has already had a snowball effect, with Comcast reportedly set to announce its bid for media company 21st Century Fox.
And lastly from Reddit, Twitter has announced in a blog post today that it’s making several changes to its platform. Moments will soon scroll vertically instead of horizontally to match the Twitter timeline because that apparently leads to more user engagement, and the Explore page will replace how it organizes via content type with topic tabs instead to make it easier to navigate. The search page will be simplified and users will now get push notifications for news stories the social media platform thinks you’d like based on your Twitter habits. There will also be a page dedicated to the World Cup and for each individual match in the tournament. The Happening Now section at the top of your feed for sports will now be expanded to include breaking and personalized news. This is all expected to be rolled out in the next few weeks for US users first.
