Except, progress grinding to a halt pretty much described Twitter before Elon Musk too. The story that anyone who knew anything was let go is just that, a story, as the number of employees by year shows Twitter, and other tech companies in the same period, overhired and then went back to pre-2020 levels.
The only difference between then and now is that there is a big personality at the top who now personifies everything Twitter does, especially if things go wrong, whereas before it was mainly just a faceless bureaucracy whose Trust and Safety lead at times had more visibility than the CEO.
The subtext is that Twitter changing hands also involved trimming a lot of the dead weight, particularly hitting the softer managerial/diversity/HR side. Now a lot of people are rooting for the site to fail because it has gotten too "bro-ey", as the era of trust-and-safety and $15k backchannel bluecheck deals has made way for free-speech and monthly subscriptions.
The only difference between then and now is that there is a big personality at the top who now personifies everything Twitter does, especially if things go wrong, whereas before it was mainly just a faceless bureaucracy whose Trust and Safety lead at times had more visibility than the CEO.
The subtext is that Twitter changing hands also involved trimming a lot of the dead weight, particularly hitting the softer managerial/diversity/HR side. Now a lot of people are rooting for the site to fail because it has gotten too "bro-ey", as the era of trust-and-safety and $15k backchannel bluecheck deals has made way for free-speech and monthly subscriptions.