Almost 50% of the workforce was impacted, according to an internal message seen by AFP, and would immediately lose access to company computers and email.
Los Angeles: On Friday, Twitter laid off half of its 7,500-person workforce as the company’s troubled big restructuring under new owner Elon Musk got under way, only one week after his sensational takeover.
After being told to leave, employees all over the world used Twitter to express their anger or shock and bid farewell to one of Silicon Valley’s most recognizable enterprises.
I’m in shock. I disagree with the statement made by Michele Austin, Twitter’s head of public policy for North America.
After waiting 24 hours since the business’s initial email informing staff of impending layoffs, Musk tweeted Friday evening, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, regrettably there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
Prior to the layoffs, Twitter restricted access to all of its locations and asked staff to remain at home while awaiting an email informing them of their destiny.
“To treat someone this way is really abhorrent. They appear to be making a mercenary effort and are doing everything they can to save money “a fired employee who requested anonymity in his remarks.
The cull is a part of Musk’s effort to acquire financing for the massive $44 billion acquisition, for which he sold $15.5 billion worth of Tesla stock and took on billions of dollars in debt.
According to company sources, Musk’s teams were forcing a rapid pace on the remaining staff members and using Tesla coders to supervise the work of “Tweeps,” as employees at Twitter are known internally.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is rumored to owe $1 billion in interest payments alone for a deal he attempted to back out of nearly immediately after he signed it in April.
Musk has been feverishly searching for new Twitter money sources since making his large acquisition, and one idea he has is to charge users $8 per month for verified accounts.
Since many of the largest companies in the world postpone their ad sales after learning of Musk’s well-known disdain for content controls, the actions would help Twitter resist the prospect of losing advertisers, which are the company’s main source of income.
Missed it!
On Twitter on Friday, the volatile businessman bemoaned a “major loss in revenue” and blamed it on “activist groups” that were pressuring advertisers.
“We exerted every effort to placate the activists. Absolutely botched up! In America, they’re attempting to stifle free expression “Added he.
This appeared to be a reference to Musk’s earlier encounter with civil rights organisations, during which he heard concerns that Twitter would spark a wave of hate speech a week before the election.
Musk had promised that Twitter will not turn into a “free-for-all hellscape” in an effort to calm people’s fears, but since taking over the firm, he has also retweeted a tweet sharing a conspiracy theory about an attack on the spouse of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Elon Musk is an unpredictable billionaire who is gravely unqualified to lead this platform, “said Nicole Gill, Accountable Tech’s executive director.
She was a member of a group of 60 rights organizations that demanded on Friday that advertising on the Musk-owned platform be boycotted.
It is “immoral, dangerous, and profoundly detrimental to our democracy,” according to Derrick Johnson, head of the NAACP, a key civil rights organization, for an advertiser to support a website that promotes hate speech, election skepticism, and conspiracy theories.