According to a companywide email, Elon Musk will begin laying off Twitter staff on Friday, reducing the social media service’s 7,500-person workforce less than a week after completing his massive takeover.
According to a copy of the letter obtained by The New York Times, Twitter workers were told through email that layoffs would soon commence. As the layoffs continued on Friday, employees were told to stay at home and not report to the offices. The mail, which was sent from a generic address and signed with “Twitter,” did not specify the amount of layoffs.
The email said, “In an attempt to put Twitter on a healthy path, we will undergo the arduous process of decreasing our worldwide workforce.” “We know that this will have an effect on a lot of employees who have made great contributions to Twitter, but we must take this measure to guarantee the company’s future success.”
According to prior internal communications and an investor, almost half of Twitter’s employees may be let off, however the exact number may not be known for some time. As the email arrived in staff inboxes on Thursday evening, employees submitted love and salute emojis in the chat platform Slack. Some workers reported losing access to the company’s systems in the late evening, a probable precursor to being laid off.
Mr. Musk finalised his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on October 27 and promptly removed its CEO and other key executives. Since then, other executives have resigned or been terminated, and supervisors have been requested to compile lists of high- and low-performing personnel, presumably with an eye toward layoffs. Mr. Musk also brought in over fifty engineers and staff from his other firms, including electric car manufacturer Tesla, to study the layoff lists of Twitter employees and the technology of the social site.
The wealthiest guy in the world is under pressure to make Twitter profitable. This was the world’s biggest leveraged buyout of a technology business. For the transaction, the billionaire also burdened Twitter with over $13 billion in debt and is obligated to pay approximately $1 billion every year in interest. However, Twitter has often lost money and has a weak cash flow. Mr. Musk may gain from decreasing expenditures so that the company’s operations are less costly.
Mr. Musk and Twitter did not reply to demands for comment immediately.
Twitter’s layoffs are unlikely to be the most extensive in the technology sector. In 2008, the computer firm HP laid off 24,600 workers, or around 7.5% of its workforce. It then laid off tens of thousands more workers, reducing its workforce by around 30 percent.
Other IT corporations have lately eliminated workers. Thursday, Lyft announced that around 650 of its 5,000 workers will be let go. The payment processing company Stripe said that it will eliminate 14 percent of its workforce, or around 1,100 positions.
Jesse Lehrich, the founder of Accountable Tech, an industry advocacy group, said that the layoffs constituted an arbitrary purge only days before Tuesday’s midterm elections.
It was unclear if Mr. Musk had complied with federal and California rules requiring corporations to offer early warning of major layoffs. A spokeswoman for California’s Employment Development Department said on Thursday evening that the government had not received any such letters from San Francisco-based Twitter, which is expected to notify the agency of major layoffs.
Late Thursday at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, several workers were seen milling around in one of the building’s lobbies while still wearing their company credentials. Some were holding drinks from the bar connected to Twitter’s workplace and checking their phones for news regarding cutbacks.
This also suggests that many Twitter workers will likely determine their employment status from their homes.