Katie Paul and Dawn Chmielewski by Sheila Dang

(Reuters). Observe the speed at which Twitter (NYSE.) approved Elon Musk’s offer to buy it out for $44 billion. The dim outlook Wall Street has about Twitter’s potential financial success is a reflection of the demands made by Elliott Management, an activist investor in 2020.

Twitter will report its quarterly financial results Thursday. Analysts believe that user growth will slow to the extent they require to meet aggressive growth targets for 2023. Jack Dorsey was co-founder of Twitter and former chief executive. Refinitiv data suggests that Twitter may miss this goal and continue to lag for the rest of the year.

Two weeks ahead of the deal announcement, Michael Nathanson, an influential tech and media analyst at MoffettNathanson, advised shareholders to “take the money…and run.”

The same conclusions were reached by Twitter’s board. According to people familiar with the discussions, the directors were skeptical that Parag Agrawal, the new CEO, would deliver an even higher return than Musk’s. This led to the sale of Twitter four days later.

Five months ago, Twitter was facing additional risks by announcing that Agrawal would be the next CEO. Ryan Jacob, chief investment officer of Jacob Asset Management which has shares worth $7.7million, stated this:

Jacob stated that “They have ambitious targets and there is a lot of doubt they can reach those numbers.” Jacob said, “The CEO has no record.”

Eight Twitter staffers (ex-employes and executives) spoke out to Reuters about long-standing internal problems, indecision, and lack of accountability. These issues were exacerbated, according to one employee.

Musk and Agrawal received a thank you tweet from Dorsey after the announcement that the deal was being taken private. Agrawal blamed Wall Street for placing the firm in an untenable situation.

Twitter refused to comment. Tesla and Musk have not yet responded to comment requests.

A OTHER REORG

Musk’s leadership is causing employees to be ready for new changes.

Former and current employees of Twitter told Reuters that Twitter has had a history of executives changing since 2006. This made it hard for them to make long-term commitments. They often leave projects hanging as soon as they begin to yield results. In December, the company underwent a major reorganization.

Consider the 2016 push to live entertainment, sports and news. This was in response to Twitter’s strengths as a real time platform. Twitter has partnered with the NFL in streaming games, and the company promoted it widely.

Dorsey joined the Digital Content NewFronts executives in New York to highlight the service’s offerings to advertisers.

Twitter was reorganized in 2018 and there were 10 people who managed aspects of technology, revenue and product. One former executive, and current employee, told Reuters that this spread the responsibility for live video pushes.

Live video didn’t work because there was no clear owner of the space, and hearings were held in Washington, D.C. New privacy rules in Europe, financial pressures and new EU privacy regulations meant that executives weren’t paying attention to them.

According to four sources, senior executives were often pursuing their own agendas at the top without working with others.

According to sources, this problem was especially acute for executives who were responsible for revenue, product engineering and technology, also known as the “experience team”. Elliott’s arrival exacerbated these issues. One current employee said that the “pressure to reach the 2023 growth targets” made the situation worse.

One example was Fleets, Twitter’s Snapchat copycat.

The feature, which was launched in 2020 and promoted by Kayvon Beykpour (product director), was ridiculed by Twitter users for being a last-minute attempt to join the disappearing message bandwagon.

According to two sources familiar with the matter, the company sent hundreds of engineers to build Fleets. However, Agrawal and Beykpour did not collaborate with revenue-generating counterparts and released the feature without any plans to include ad space.

A former executive stated that the company was in “really bad shape”. One former executive said, “It was the standard ‘hey just push it forward, we’ll modify it later’.”

Twitter pulled the plug on Fleets just eight months after its initial launch, and only one month after having introduced a restricted ad rollout.

HAND-OFF MANAGEMENT

Reuters has been told that revenue and product mismatches might have been less frequent if Dorsey had held the teams responsible. But, Dorsey, who was a chief executive, adopted a management philosophy that made it difficult for him to take specific decisions. Four former Twitter executives spoke out to Reuters.

These former executives claimed that Dorsey’s strategy was inspired in part by Bob Iger’s past CEO at Disney. Iger was well-known for his ability to hire strong executives and encourage them to take risky decisions.

Jack has been criticized for taking too long to make decisions. He was also reluctant to be involved in decision-making.” The ex-executive said. Jack views his involvement in tie-breaking, which he believes is a sign of poor leadership. It means that the management hasn’t resolved it.

Many people thrived with this autonomy, including developers who were driven to invent and innovate new things. Others said that it led to the demise of the company.

An employee who is currently employed stated that everyone agrees there should be more accountability in decision-making at all levels of management.

Employees at the company’s headquarters complained Monday about Musk’s “questionable ethics”, and asked questions about Twitter’s effort to restrict hate speech. Responding to questions about Donald Trump’s return from Twitter, executives said they weren’t sure what the future of the company looked like.

It is evident that Twitter will soon be led by a strong leader who has strong opinions about Twitter’s future, regardless of their political views.