X beefs up safety staff, a few dozen people at a time

X (formerly Twitter) is re-investing in its trust, safety and security teams pre-election, after CEO Elon Musk controversially dissolved the platform's oversight council nearly two years ago.

The company has opened up two dozen new safety and cybersecurity positions at sites across the United States, TechCrunch reported, a lean addition intended to bulk up its skeleton staff. Positions spread across existing teams, including roles for a director of strategic response, government affairs managers, security engineers, and a threat intelligence specialist. Earlier this year, X announced it wanted to build back out its content moderation team, beginning with 100-employee staff for a "Trust and Safety center of excellence" based in Austin, TX.

But these recent hiring announcements, and their modest staff numbers, come after years of Musk quietly chipping away at X's safety investments. A report by Australia's online safety commissioner published in January found that the CEO fired around 80 percent of its trust and safety engineers not long after the site's acquisition by Musk in the fall of 2022. At the time of the oversight body's analysis, the company had just 55 engineers on staff for global trust and safety operations, while the team at large had been whittled down by nearly half.

Continued staff cuts, as well as the CEO's own statements on the platform's role in promoting "free speech" and sparse content moderation, have led many to call into question Musk's investment in platform safety — or lack thereof. The new hiring also comes at a precarious time for the company as X's revenue prospects look dim for 2025, according to a new report in The Guardian.