"I feel like we're headed to a good place. We're roughly break-even, [and] I think we're trending toward being cash-flow positive very soon, literally in a matter of months" –Elon Musk
Weeks ago, in March and April, Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk told the world he'd restored Twitter to "roughly break-even" after chasing out most of the advertisers and employees. Unable to cut costs as quickly as advertisers want to leave, Twitter appears to be in a death spiral. We've long heard tales of unpaid rent and equipment firesales, and now we're told that Twitter's cloud service vendors, Google and Amazon, are being stiffed.
It sounds like Twitter's trust and safety team relies on the Google contract, so sinking it will help Musk achieve his visible goal of burning the whole thing down. It must be very lonely on the Twitter trust and safety team.
Twitter has refused to pay its Google Cloud bills as its contract comes up for renewal this month, Platformer has learned, leading to a high-stakes conflict between the companies that could result in Twitter's trust and safety teams being crippled.
While Twitter hosts some services on its own servers, the company has long contracted with Google and Amazon to complement its infrastructure. Prior to Musk buying Twitter last year, the company signed a multi-year contract with Google to host services related to fighting spam, removing child sexual abuse material, and protecting accounts, among other things.
Twitter has been trying to renegotiate its contract with Google since at least March, the Information reported that month. It had also delayed payments to Amazon Web Services, leading the company to threaten withholding advertising payments.
via Tech Dirt
