Elon Musk is beginning lay-offs at Twitter’s 7,500-strong workforce, according to a company-wide email, in a dramatic cost-cutting cull that comes a week after the billionaire closed his $44bn buyout of the social media company.
Twitter employees will be notified of their employment status by 9am Pacific time on Friday, according to an email seen by the Financial Times.
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” said the email, which was received by staffers on Thursday.
“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
The email did not clarify the scale of the headcount reduction. However, Musk has drawn up plans to cut around 3,700 jobs, or half of the workforce, according to two people familiar with the plans, who added that the final figure could change.
The job losses will cap a chaotic first week for Twitter under Musk’s command, during which the world’s richest man overhauled the management team, asked staffers to work round the clock on new products and publicly brainstormed plans to shake up the business via his own Twitter account.
There has been turmoil inside Twitter for months after Musk first made his bid to buy the company, before trying to back out of the deal while publicly mocking its staff. After a fierce legal battle, the deal closed on Thursday last week, with Musk paying his original offer of $54.20 a share.
Musk has made no secret of his plans to overhaul Twitter, which has long been criticised for its sluggish pace of product innovation. He has previously stated he could cut jobs and costs to make Twitter “healthy” and last week tweeted: “There seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding.”
The email on Thursday said Twitter’s offices would temporarily close and all badge access would be suspended on Friday “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data”.
One staffer said many employees lost access to their corporate Slack account and email on Thursday night.
Staffers had responded earlier by flooding the social media company’s water cooler Slack channel, a messaging group meant to be the online version of chatting around the office water cooler, with emojis of a person saluting, according to another staffer.
Ahead of the email, Twitter employees on Blind, a forum for tech employees to post anonymously, shared their disillusionment with Musk’s management style.
One described current working conditions as a “nightmare scenario that won’t let up” adding: “Please lay me off.” Another comment pled for the lay-offs to come quick: “It’s psychological torture at this point.”
