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Elon Musk spoke at an investment conference Friday morning as employees at Twitter, which he now owns, were receiving notifications that they had been laid off from the company. |
One week after being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, Twitter on Friday announced the termination of staff across the board in a dramatic wave of cost-cutting that may potentially change the way one of the most prominent platforms operates.
In advance of the anticipated announcement of layoffs, many Twitter employees started posting on the platform on Thursday night and Friday early that they had already been locked out of their work email accounts. Others sent out salutes and blue heart emojis to show they were at work.
Employees from Twitter teams such as ethical AI, marketing and communication, search, public policy, wellness, and other teams had tweeted about being let go by Friday morning. According to employee posts, members of the curation team who assist boost trustworthy information on the platform, notably concerning elections, were also let go.
One Twitter employee posted on the platform, "Just was remotely logged out of my work laptop and removed from Slack." That it has to end this way is very tragic.
She and other members of Twitter's human rights team, according to a different employee, were fired. The worker continued, expressing her pride in the team's efforts "to protect those at risk in global conflicts & crises, including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those, particularly at risk of human rights abuse by their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders."
Simon Balmain, a former senior community manager at Twitter who was sacked on Friday, claimed in a CNN interview that he lost access to Slack, email, and other internal services about eight hours before learning of his dismissal through email on Friday morning. The layoff email, he continued, "still didn't really provide any facts" as to why he had been fired.
"The enormous solidarity we've seen from people that are in the firm, people who are in the same position, people that left the company in years past," Balmain added, "is certainly mitigating the waves of aggravation and frustration and all that stuff." It's like a huge support system, which has been fantastic.
Some staff is pleased to have been let go, a laid-off Twitter employee told CNN on Friday. Being safe would have been a penalty for me, the employee claimed.
Musk made an appearance Friday for a cheerful interview at an investor conference and discussed building more affordable electric automobiles and his plans to travel to Mars while Twitter employees were complaining about being laid off. I attempted to get out of the acquisition, Musk admitted in the interview, but he then added, "I think there is a great amount of potential... and I think it may be one of the most valuable companies in the world."
Musk nodded in agreement when the journalist mentioned that he had fired "half of Twitter," but he made no further comment. He made it seem like the layoffs were required for a business that, like other social media companies, was having "revenue issues" before his acquisition as advertisers cut back on spending because of recessionary concerns.
In the days following the completion of the deal, "several significant advertisers have ceased spending on Twitter," according to Musk.
The precise number of Twitter employees that have been or will be laid off is unknown. Before Musk's acquisition, Twitter employed around 7,500 people. According to recent estimates, Twitter may reduce its workforce by 25% to 50% as Musk reevaluates the platform's functionality and works to boost the business's bottom line after incurring massive debt to fund his $44 billion acquisition.
Employees were informed via email on Thursday night that they would get a notice before noon. ET on Friday that details their work situation.
According to a copy of the email acquired by CNN, "If your employment is not impacted, you will get a message via your Twitter email." You will be notified via your personal email of the next steps if your employment is disrupted.
The email also stated that all credential access would be suspended and the company's offices would be temporarily closed "to help protect the safety" of the staff and Twitter's systems.
The email finished by stating that the workers will have "a very tough process to go through."
Following certain staff layoffs, several Twitter employees on Thursday night filed a class action complaint, claiming the company had violated the federal and California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act).
According to the WARN Act, employers with more than 100 workers are required to give 60 days notice in writing in advance of a mass layoff "affecting 50 or more employees at a single place of employment."
The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has stated publicly that he thinks following federal labor regulations is "trivial." According to a statement given to CNN by the lawsuit's attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan. To guarantee that Twitter is held responsible for our laws and to stop Twitter employees from mistakenly signing away their rights, we filed this federal case.
CNN received confirmation from California's Employment Development Department that as of Friday at noon, Twitter had not filed any WARN warnings.
Separately, additional labor attorneys informed CNN on Friday that they had started getting queries from Twitter workers who were unsure as to whether their dismissals might have been unlawfully discriminatory or retaliatory.
According to Chauniqua Young, a partner at the law firm Outten & Golden, "Former Twitter employees have reached out to us regarding their layoffs and their circumstances, and we're looking at all the issues — beyond appropriate notice — and to ensure the employee wasn't laid off due to their membership in a protected category.
Other legal experts claim that Musk's management of the layoffs may well cause him greater issues in the future, whether in terms of attracting future talent or keeping existing employees content. This is in addition to the potential for lawsuits resulting from the layoffs.
Terri Gerstein, a fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program and Economic Policy Institute at Harvard Law School, remarked, "Once you treat people like this, they remember it." "Of the remaining individuals, none of them certainly feel comfortable in their employment, and I would be surprised if the surviving individuals were not updating their resumes right now or discussing joining a union with one another."
According to two people familiar with the decision, Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal and two other executives when he first took over at Twitter.
And less than a week after Musk bought the business, the C-suite looks to have almost completely disappeared thanks to a combination of resignations and firings. The prior board of directors for Twitter has also been disbanded by Musk.
On Friday, many employees used the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked, a past-tense parody of one formerly frequently used by Twitter colleagues, to express how they felt.
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