After the take-over of Twitter, Elon Musk will have a lot of work to do. Musk is the CEO of several companies including big brands like Tesla and SpaceX. As Musk battles with Twitter, Tesla is losing huge funds due to market response. However, Elon Musk believes that he has the capacity to transform Twitter. One thing that we are all sure of is that the Twitter Musk took over is bloated. The company has much more staff and infrastructure than it can handle. For this reason, Elon Musk Twitter launched large-scale layoffs. Many employees have confirmed that they can not escape the fate of being laid off. Even vulnerable employees like those that are heavily pregnant were not retained.
After Musk took over Twitter, he began to cut the company’s operating costs. On Friday morning, Twitter management began emailing employees who were fired. According to media reports, about half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees will have to go.
Twitter blocks employees out of the system
Some employees claim that they can no longer access the system overnight. This is happening even before the finalization of the sack
“Looks like I’m out of a job. The company just remotely logged me out of my work laptop access and kicked me out of the Slack channel,” tweeted Simon Balmain, a former senior community manager at Twitter. “Always united. I love you both so much. It’s such a shame it ended this way.”
Balmain lives in the UK but is part of Twitter’s Los Angeles office and works remotely for a few hours a day. In an interview, he elaborated on the process of his dismissal.
“Everyone got an email saying the company was going to make massive layoffs,” Balmain said. About an hour later, employees’ laptop access started being logged out remotely, along with Slack channels and Gmail company mailboxes”.
More employees confirm their sack
Rachel Bonn, a marketing manager at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, said she was also laid off despite being eight months pregnant.
Rumman Chowdhury, Twitter’s head of machine learning ethics, posted a screenshot showing that he was no longer able to log into his work account.
Choudhury added: “Imagine the relief you feel when you’re the target of the big villain Thanos.”
“Well, it’s true,” wrote Lauren Pinella Trelor, Twitter’s former head of onboarding support, “We’ve received layoff emails from the company. The experience and the sense of solidarity are unforgettable. The best days may not yet come, and I’m really sad right now.”
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Julie Steele, Twitter’s head of internal communications, also said she was fired. “Twitter is so special. Four years later, I leave with a fulfilling experience, an experience I never imagined, and a strong connection with so many Twitter users,” Steele tweeted. “I hold my head high, knowing I gave it my all. To my fellow Twitterers: We have a lot to be proud of. Time to fly higher!”
Employees head to court
Some of the fired Twitter employees have filed lawsuits against Musk and the company. They claim they were not given advance notice of layoffs. Late Thursday, Twitter employees received a memo acknowledging that layoffs were imminent at the company.
“In order to put Twitter on a healthy path, we will have a hard time launching global layoffs on Friday,” a company source said. “We recognize that this will affect many people who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but unfortunately this action is necessary to ensure the company can continue to move forward.”
“We acknowledge that this has been an extremely challenging experience, whether you have been affected or not,” Twitter said.
Twitter also said the company would temporarily close its offices as a safety precaution during the mass layoffs. There have been reports in recent months that Musk has privately told investors that he plans to cut operating costs after the deal closes. Musk complained that he was “clearly overbid” for Twitter at $54.20 a share. Musk revealed on Friday that Twitter had lost a “significant amount” of revenue due to pressure from activist groups on advertisers. At present, Musk is actively promoting Twitter to launch a paid subscription service of $8 a month to increase the company’s revenue. In addition to the layoffs, Musk reportedly plans to eliminate Twitter’s remote work policy, as well as an additional “off day” for all employees.
Elon Musk says he has no choice
Elon Musk just tweeted in response to Twitter’s massive layoffs. He said that the company was losing more than $4 million a day, and there was no choice for layoffs.
Musk’s recent tweet reads…”Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone who exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required”.
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and integrity, revealed on Twitter that the company’s layoffs yesterday resulted in the loss of about 50% of its employees. According to Bloomberg, Twitter has cut 784 jobs in its San Francisco office. It also cut 106 in its San Jose, California office. Furthermore, it cut 93 jobs in its Los Angeles office.
Musk also tweeted earlier today defending the layoffs. He said pressure from advocacy groups caused advertisers to suspend spending on Twitter. This he claims is leading to a sharp drop in Twitter’s revenue. “Even though we haven’t made any changes to content moderation and we’ve done everything we can to appease these activists. Extreme chaos! They’re trying to destroy freedom of speech in America,” Musk claims.
