Elon Musk’s Latest Cost-Cutting Move Ends Twitter’s Music Dreams

“Twitter began negotiations with the three major music conglomerates — Universal, Sony and Warner — in the fall of 2021, according to six people close to the talks,” The New York Times reported. When Musk took over, however, a number of employees involved in those negotiations were laid off. To recall, Musk has drastically gutted Twitter’s workforce in the past few months, leading to some high profile departures. The cost-cutting measures run so deep that employee perks have been cut, office space has been vacated, furniture auctioned, and bankruptcy fears have been raised by none other than Musk himself.

“The company had little means to justify paying tens of millions of dollars to music rights holders,” says the New York Times. However, Twitter has been caught in the storm of music copyright violations on multiple occasions. In 2021, Billboard reported that Twitter has not showed an inclination to come to the table to discuss a contract with music labels. What’s more, Billboard also noted that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) complained that Twitter takes “three to five days” to acquiesce to takedown requests for copyright violations.