Elon Musk lays off half of Twitter Employees while others await ‘confirmation’

Elon Musk purchased Twitter the previous week, and with this, he has taken many drastic decisions to restructure the operations. Firstly, he fired Paras Aggarwal, Twitter’s Chief Executive, followed by the finance Chief.

Now, about fifty percent of Twitter’s workforce has been laid off. Elon Musk has declared that the decision was integral for survival.

Within a week, Twitter announced a moderation procedure as part of the revamping process and updated Blue Subscription. He even modified the application’s user interface while saying that the social media platform would charge users to keep their verification badges. The monthly cost of the subscription would be USD 20.

Now, he is inclined to cutting costs by laying off thousands of employees. Reports state that nearly fifty percent of the 7500 employees have been handed the pink slip.

Layoffs have been taking place globally, and some of the Indian members working for Twitter have lost their jobs.

The eight corporate employees who were affected by the layoffs described it as terrifying and confusing.

A note from Twitter’s chief marketing officer, which one of the employees shared, stated that while planning is ongoing and progressing as swiftly as possible, it is not yet complete. Elon has abandoned the notion of 75% of the layoffs, and it is untrue that he would start the layoff process before November 1. 

The sales, product, engineering, legal, and other areas will experience layoffs, according to recent claims from reliable sources.

One Twitter employee mentioned on his social media platform that he was suddenly logged out of his work laptop and removed from Slack. Others updated their profiles from current status to former employees in the company. 

Elon Musk fires half of the employees as a part of restructuring process:

Layoffs on Twitter has taken place on day 1 of the takeover. The top executives were not even exempted from the drastic change. 

The company has sacked CMO Leslie Berland, Chief Customer Officer Sarah Personette, and Jean Phillippe Maheu, who was working as the vice president of global client solutions over the week.

Exactly after a week Musk took over Twitter, most of the employees received an email stating their role in Twitter which stated that if the employees are not impacted, they will receive a notification via their Twitter email. If an alternate situation takes place, they will receive an email that will guide them through the further steps.

Elon Musk has accepted that many employees were laid off and that this action is necessary. The reduction in workforce seemed to be a suitable step when the company is losing four million per day. Everyone who was laid off was offered three months of severance pay which is fifty percent more than legally required.

Twitter has confirmed that they have already let go fifty percent of the staff, including 15 percent in the trust and safety team, who are responsible for preventing the spread of misinformation and harmful content in the digital world.

Many advertisers are loosening their ties with the firm. The safety and integrity head Yoel Roth has been reassuring users and advertisers regarding the layoffs. 

Elon Musk has tweeted mentioning that Twitter has experienced a severe decline in revenue because activist groups are pressurizing the advertisers. However, nothing has changed much with content moderation, and they did everything that could be done to help the activists.

Apart from the restructuring process, Elon Musk has been cutting costs on infrastructure projects. He has ordered the team to find ways to maintain the costs by shutting down servers and cloud services. In addition, Twitter has shut down its offices.

Elon Musk is focussing on diversifying the source of revenues for Twitter at present. He is planning to make verification and DM a paid feature. Furthermore, the company has confirmed to increase the blue subscription to 8 USD.

Many federal employees have sued Elon Musk stating that they did not receive any notice under the US federal law and have lost their jobs.

At the end of 2021, Twitter employed more than 7000 people. The information was obtained via a regulatory filing, and 2000 employees make up a fourth of the total headcount.

Elon Musk previously rejected in a report that Twitter will not fire employees to avoid stock grants on the due date.