The social media platform’s personnel will be drastically reduced as a result of Elon Musk’s mass layoffs, Twitter announced in an email to staff on Thursday.
The email stated, “We will begin the challenging process of decreasing our global workforce on Friday in an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path.” Both the New York Times and the Washington Post mentioned the internal email in their articles about the layoffs.
The warning stated that an email would be sent to every employee on Friday. A notification email will be sent to the work account of those who will keep their positions and the personal email of those who will lose their jobs. Employees were warned not to share “sensitive company information” with the press or on social media.
Just days after taking over as CEO of the business he paid $44 billion for, Musk was rumoured to fire up to 50% of Twitter’s workers. Given that the company had more than 7,000 employees at the end of 2021, this could result in the loss of thousands of jobs.
In an email to staff members, Twitter announced that all badge access and office closures would be temporary measures taken “to help protect the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and user data.”
Immediately after assuming control of the firm, Musk sacked a number of key Twitter personnel, including the CEO, Parag Agrawal, the chief financial officer, Ned Segal, and the chief of legal and policy, Vijaya Gadde.
Musk’s job cuts are part of a larger initiative to turn the firm profitable after buying it for $44 billion, a figure he acknowledged was “overpaying.” Musk contributed almost $13 billion in loans and his own money to close the deal, which he is now under pressure to repay.
Musk told Twitter’s teams on Thursday to cut funding for cloud and server services in order to save $1 billion annually on infrastructure costs. In order to make money at Twitter, he has floated a number of ideas, such as charging for “verified” badges and developing a “everything app” that would bring together several platforms into one.
According to an internal source cited by The Washington Post, the impending layoffs are expected to have a significant impact on the entire organization, with reductions in marketing, product, engineering, legal, trust, and safety.
Cutting Twitter personnel only days before the US midterm elections, a time when the company has already struggled with content moderation could have serious repercussions, according to experts in misinformation and civil rights groups.
According to Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project, “With the horrifying attack on Paul Pelosi, we have only recently seen how social media conspiracy theories can lead to real-world violence, and Musk is recklessly speeding through this process.”
As layoffs approached on Thursday, Twitter staff members communicated with one another on the platform, many of whom used the #OneTeam hashtag for the company.
Employees at Twitter started tweeting about being fired on Thursday night into Friday morning; several claimed to have discovered this after being locked out of their work email, laptops, or Slack, the company’s internal messaging app.
#OneTeam always. I so loved you all. Simon Balmain, a senior community manager, tweeted. That it has to end this way is very tragic.
Can a heart be happy and hurt all at once? James Loduca, the organization’s director of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility, tweeted just before deleting all traces of Twitter from his Twitter bio.
Twitter’s US operations weren’t the only ones affected by the upheaval. “Bye, Twitter, it’s been a trip,” the company’s local marketing manager in Australia also tweeted on Friday.
According to reports, employee turnover has been at an all-time high as the turbulent issue over whether Musk will buy Twitter has continued.
