"Maybe, For Every 1,000 People, You Only Need A 100." Deepak Chopra On Elon Musk's Twitter Staffing Cuts

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Since his takeover of Twitter in late October this year, Elon Musk has laid off nearly 50% of the workforce of the social media company, while also accepting resignations from more than 1,200 employees- at the time of writing this piece, these developments have brought down the headcount at the company from 7,500 to 2,750.

Many have not reacted well to Musk’s role in causing this mass exodus of Twitter staff, and their misgivings about the entrepreneur have only been exacerbated with the erratic, chaos-loving persona that he seems to have taken on during this tumultuous period.

Like many of us, Deepak Chopra -the globally renowned author who is the founder of The Chopra Foundation- has been keeping tabs on Musk’s antics at Twitter, and he too has his two cents about the whole situation- which he shared with Entrepreneur Middle East during an interview amid his visit to the UAE in November.

“I look at what Elon Musk is doing right now, and there are two ways to interpret it,” Chopra said. “One, he’s crazy, he’s full of himself, so anything he does brings attention to him, which means he’s insecure, notwithstanding his success.”

“There’s another way to interpret it, and that is [that] maybe he’s right in what he’s doing,” Chopra continued. “Many organizations have too many employees, and we learned that in the [COVID-19] pandemic. I think he may be right- maybe, for every 1,000 people, you only need a 100, and it gets more efficient.”

“So, the jury is out- we can’t get into his mind, [to find out] why he’s doing what he’s doing. But, maybe, he’s actually revisiting how companies should be run, in which case, all success to him. But if he’s doing it just to get attention, you know, they say, karma never forgets an address,” Chopra smiled.

Chopra’s thoughts on Musk’s current leadership of Twitter tie into what he believes to have been the most important lesson he learnt through the course of his own career.

“The biggest insight is that if you want to be successful, you have to be immune to criticism, but, at the same time, responsive to feedback, which [are] two different things,” Chopra said. “When you are not immune to criticism, you take it personally, [and] you will be offended for the rest of your life, and that will interfere with anything you want to do. At the same time, it is important to be responsive to feedback, because, sometimes, the critics are right, as long as you’re not offended. The rest is easy- be fearless, and be beneath no one.”

Chopra added that when facing criticism, it’d serve one well if they are clear about their reasons for whatever it is that they have set out to do.

“You should ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing,” Chopra said. “If the motivation is self-importance, then that’s self-pity in disguise. If the motivation is creativity, then, if you hold on to your vision, maybe you will succeed, notwithstanding the critics.”

This article is from Entrepreneur.com