Arguably, it has a lot more than that.

Elon Musk recently stated that he would lay off 75% of Twitter’s bloated staff of 7,500.  Twitter was quick to say no layoffs are planned…which is technically true.  However, the people saying there are no plans are not the people who’ll be making these decisions post-acquisition.

The larger question is…why does it take 7500 people to run Twitter?!?

Here’s some comparisons:

• SeekingAlpha: amazing fintech site with integrations to tons of other sites, processes and beautifully presents mountains of financial reports, lively moderated forums, handling and paying hundreds of contributors, plus organizing and presenting news 24×7: 170 staff
• Chess.com: world’s #1 chess website with thousands of people playing simultaneously, tons of forums and discussion, complex home-engineered anti-cheat systems, video content and lectures, special events and news coverage: 400 staff
• Reddit: 700 employees
• PornHub: 150 employees

It’s truly hard to believe that Twitter requires more than ten times the number of people to run than Reddit.  If you told me 1,500, I wouldn’t argue – Twitter is bigger and the way it works requires more people to watch content.  So maybe 2x Reddit.  Heck, maybe 3x which would be Musk’s number.  But 10x?  How can that not be gross bloat?

What do you think?  Please react to Musk’s plans below in the comments!

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.