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Tag: Twitter layoffs

  • Musk dismisses Twitter employee question on layoffs with Office Space clip

    Musk dismisses Twitter employee question on layoffs with Office Space clip

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    On Monday evening, one such employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, a prominent designer at the company, took to Twitter to complain that the company had yet to confirm that he’d been laid off, nine days after he was locked out of his work computer. 

    Twitter’s CEO responded by asking Haraldur what he did at Twitter. Musk even tweeted that he would approve Haraldur breaching confidentiality to share what he did. 

    But after Haraldur shared some of his responsibilities at Twitter, Musk responded with a clip from the movie “Office Space,” where two consultants challenge an employee with a question: “What would you say you do here?”

    On Feb. 26, Haraldur was reported to be one of the 200 employees laid off by the social media company in late February. Haraldur, who joined Twitter in 2021, even posted a goodbye tweet the same day. 

    Yet, according to his tweets, Haraldur never got official confirmation that he was “no longer employed” at the company until after his Twitter conversation with Musk.

    Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The social media company no longer has a communications department.

    Acqui-hire

    Haraldur joined Twitter in 2021 after selling his design agency Ueno to the social media company. The sale was presented as an “acqui-hire,” or when a company is bought for its talent, rather than other parts of its business operations.

    According to Haraldur’s personal website, he led an “innovation team” at Twitter that helped to spearhead Twitter Communities as well as the service’s “edit button.”

    Haraldur offered more details of his work in his conversation with Musk on Monday, which included shifting “the company away from focusing on power users and on to younger users (because our user base is aging).”

    Musk responded by casting doubt on Haraldur’s work, tweeting: “Pics or it didn’t happen.”

    Twitter layoffs 

    Other Twitter acquisitions have fared poorly after Musk bought the company. Twitter laid off Martijn de Kuijper, the founder of Revue, a newsletter service that Twitter acquired in 2021, as part of its job cuts on Feb. 26.

    “Looks like I’m let go. Now my Revue journey is really over,” de Kujiper tweeted. Twitter shut down Revue last year.

    Both Haraldur and de Kujiper were on a “do not fire” list, due to the expenses of laying them off, reported Platformer, a newsletter run by technology journalists Zoe Schiffer and Casey Newton. (On Monday, Haraldur asked on Twitter whether the company “will pay me what they owe me per my contract.”)

    Continual layoffs may be taking a toll on Twitter, which has experienced frequent glitches in recent weeks.

    On Monday, Twitter suffered another outage, as users complained that they were unable to share images or access links. Platformer reported that the outage was due to Twitter shutting down free access to the company’s API.

    Platformer reports that just one site reliability engineer was put on the project, who made a “bad configuration change” that broke both Twitter’s platform and many of its internal tools, citing a current employee at the company. 

    “A small API change had massive ramifications. The code stack is extremely brittle for no good reasons,” Musk tweeted on Monday. “Will ultimately need a complete rewrite.”

    Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.

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    Nicholas Gordon

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  • Twitter cuts workers addressing hate speech and trust and safety as Elon Musk’s chaotic revamp continues

    Twitter cuts workers addressing hate speech and trust and safety as Elon Musk’s chaotic revamp continues

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    Twitter Inc., under new owner Elon Musk, has made deeper cuts into its already radically diminished trust and safety team handling global content moderation, as well as to the unit related to hate speech and harassment, according to people familiar with the matter. 

    At least a dozen more cuts on Friday night affected workers in the company’s Dublin and Singapore offices, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing non-public changes. They included Nur Azhar Bin Ayob, the head of site integrity for Twitter’s Asia-Pacific region, a relatively recent hire; and Analuisa Dominguez, Twitter’s senior director of revenue policy.

    Workers on teams handling the social network’s misinformation policy, global appeals and state media on the platform were also eliminated. 

    Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, confirmed several members of the teams were cut but denied that they targeted some of the areas mentioned by Bloomberg. 

    “It made more sense to consolidate teams under one leader (instead of two) for example,” Irwin said in an emailed response to a request for comment. 

    She said Twitter did eliminate roles in areas of the company that didn’t get enough “volume” to justify continued support. But she said that Twitter had increased staffing in its appeals department, and that it would continue to have a head of revenue policy and a head for the platform’s Asia-Pacific region for trust and safety.

    Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October, partly financing the deal with almost $13 billion of debt that entailed interest repayments of around $1.5 billion a year. He has since embarked on a frantic mission to revamp the social-media platform, which he has said is at risk of going bankrupt and was losing $4 million a day as of early November. 

    Speaking on a Twitter Spaces event last month, the mercurial entrepreneur likened the company to a “plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work.”

    Since taking over the company, Musk has overseen firings or departures of roughly 5,000 of Twitter’s 7,500 employees and instituted a “hardcore” work environment for those remaining.

    Twitter faces multiple suits over unpaid bills, including for private chartered plane flights, software services and rent at one of its San Francisco offices.

    Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

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    Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg

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  • ‘There must be a method to his madness’: Harsh Goenka defends Elon Musk, says give him some time 

    ‘There must be a method to his madness’: Harsh Goenka defends Elon Musk, says give him some time 

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    RPG Group Chairman Harsh Goenka is a frequent Twitter user who shares interesting posts with his 1.7 million followers. His Twitter feed has content for users of all ages, from motivational to fascinating to million-dollar life lessons.

    Now, Goenka has something to say about the hullabaloo over a flurry of decisions by Musk. He said that people are underestimating the genius of Elon Musk.

    Goenka said Musk was ahead of his time with his other businesses, including Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company, and that there must be “a method to his madness.” 

    “We are underestimating the genius of Elon Musk. There must be a method to his madness. Whether it was Tesla, SpaceX or Boring co, he was ahead of his times. He surely has a game plan with #Twitter which we just can’t comprehend. Let’s give him time before we predict its death,” He said. 

    Goenka had previously written a post titled “Merits of Working Hard” before sharing an old video of Elon Musk.

    Musk revealed in the video that he and his brother had to rent a small office and sleep on a couch when they started their first business. He continued by saying that they took showers at the Young Men’s Christian Association and worked nonstop to establish their business. Musk also recommended that people work nonstop, especially if they were just starting a business. 

    According to reports, the CEOs of Tesla and SpaceX gave their speech during the undergraduate ceremony at the USC Marshall School of Business in 2014.

    Social media users gave mixed reactions to the post. A user wrote. “While I too am optimistic that Twitter will survive and thrive, what I am not sure of is his intent. What color and form will @Twitter take and what will be its stated editorial policy. Agree, I guess one will have to wait and see. @elonmusk.”
    Another Twitter user wrote, “Sir, he is a businessman, I am sure you have seen numerous decks. What you are presented is not exactly what you end up buying. It’s a huge buyout, it will settle. He’s already got his eyeball space.”

    “Even Alexander failed at last. Hard work brings success, success brings ego, and ego brings failure. Elon at the third stage now,” a user tweeted.

    Ever since Musk took control of Twitter, he has been in the spotlight. Musk announced a number of layoffs, including those of the top executives, shortly after assuming control of the company. He then declared that a subscription fee would be charged for the blue tick verification. 

    The rollout of the feature had to be temporarily paused last week due to a number of problems. After the blue tick was made available for subscription, many phony accounts that assumed the identities of well-known people were successful in obtaining a blue tick. To address these problems, Twitter was forced to pause the feature.
     

    Also Read: Don’t be swayed by Elon Musk: Ashneer Grover’s word of advice on mass layoffs

    Also Read: Elon Musk plans to fire more employees at Twitter in second round of layoffs: Report

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  • ‘Working remotely is ok if…’: Elon Musk clarifies on Work From Home policy at Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX

    ‘Working remotely is ok if…’: Elon Musk clarifies on Work From Home policy at Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX

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    Billionaire Elon Musk, on Sunday, said that his Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX staff can work from home if it is not logistically possible to come into the office.

    Musk made this statement while responding to a message on the microblogging site Twitter from an Irish-based worker who said they had been told to return to the office from tomorrow.

    The worker wrote, “As I’m sure you’re aware, Elon Musk has recently bought Twitter and is making harsh and drastic changes that are affecting hundreds of Irish employees’ lives. The most recent of these decisions is that all employees must be in the office by Monday. Many of us work all around this country and are unable to do so. This is in the middle of a housing crisis that Musk has absolutely no idea about, and it is almost impossible to move to Dublin so quickly. This is putting us under an intense amount of stress and uncertainty and unfortunately.”

    He also said, “There is nothing we can do about it. One of the only things that Elon seems to react to is his own ego and the feeling of being unpopular on Twitter.”

    Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX, replied that he was not ordering people back into the office.

    He tweeted, “This is false. Anyone who can be in office, should be. However, if not logistically possible or they have essential personal matters, then staying home is fine.”

    The billionaire added that “Working remotely is also ok if their manager vouches for excellence. Same policy as Tesla & SpaceX.”

    Recently, Musk informed the staff, via an email, that he is ending the “work from home” regime permanently. In his letter to employees, Musk reportedly asked employees to brace for “difficult times ahead”.

    Musk had previously eliminated “days of rest” from the calendars of Twitter employees. The “days of rest” are monthly days that employees can take to rest and recharge.

    Musk reportedly asked the employees to work for 40 hours a week. He said that he would only let employees work remotely on a case-by-case basis.

    Musk, who is not a huge fan of working from home, had also asked the Tesla employees to return to the office. He threatened employees with dire consequences if they failed to return to the office.

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  • Jack Dorsey apologies for massive layoffs at Twitter, takes responsibility

    Jack Dorsey apologies for massive layoffs at Twitter, takes responsibility

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    Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on Saturday took responsibility for mass layoffs at the company under Elon Musk.

    Dorsey, in a tweet, apologised and said, “Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment. I realize many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that.”

    He further added, “I am grateful for, and love, everyone who has ever worked on Twitter. I don’t expect that to be mutual in this moment…or ever…and I understand.”

    This update comes a day after massive layoffs were reported at Twitter offices from around the world.

    At Twitter India, over 50 per cent of the staff was laid off without prior intimation. Meanwhile, in the US, several employees received a mail saying, “If on way to office, please return home.”

    Musk confirmed the layoffs in a tweet, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”

    Musk assured that all who have exited the company have been offered 3 months of severance.

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  • US President Joe Biden accuses Twitter of ‘spewing lies’, slams Elon Musk

    US President Joe Biden accuses Twitter of ‘spewing lies’, slams Elon Musk

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    US President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter Inc., accusing the social media platform of spreading lies.

    Biden made the comments during a fundraiser in Chicago on Friday evening, warning donors about the impact of the November 8 midterm elections on the coming years.

    Biden said, “Now what are we all worried about? Elon Musk goes out and buys an outfit that sends and spews lies all across the world.”

    “There’s no editors anymore. How do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?” added Biden.

    Musk, who bills himself as a champion of free speech, paid $44 billion for Twitter. He has fired most of the company’s top executives and board members, and has quickly implemented a plan to lay off roughly half of its 7,500 employees.

    Civil rights organisations are also increasing their pressure on advertisers to ensure Musk takes steps to prevent the platform from being used to spread hate speech or disinformation.

    Musk acknowledged on Friday that concerns about Twitter content moderation had resulted in a “massive drop in revenue,” but claimed that “nothing has changed with content moderation.”

    Musk has been looking for ways to reduce expenses and profit from the platform in various ways. One of his ideas is to charge users a monthly subscription fee to be verified on the platform.

    Additionally, he suggested that users who paid the $8 monthly fee would have their Tweets prioritised in replies, mentions, and searches. This proposal drew criticism from some users on Twitter who claimed that he was establishing a two-tier system that would favour those who were willing to pay.

    Twitter employees had filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the company was violating federal and Californian law by making significant job cuts without providing 60 days’ notice.

    Also Read: Twitter India employees get emotional and nostalgic, bid their ‘Final Goodbyes’

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  • ‘Just got laid off’: 25-year-old sacked Twitter employee’s post goes viral

    ‘Just got laid off’: 25-year-old sacked Twitter employee’s post goes viral

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    Elon Musk’s Twitter has begun laying off employees just days after letting go of its top executives. One of the workers who has reportedly been fired is Yash Agarwal, a 25-year-old Indian. While losing a job is one of life’s most difficult experiences, Yash appeared to interpret it differently.

    After being fired, he posted a joyful photo of himself on Twitter, implying otherwise. He used the hashtags “#lovetwitter” and “#lovewhereyouworked” in his post.

    Yash tweeted, “Just got laid off. Bird App, it was an absolute honour, the greatest privilege ever to be a part of this team, this culture.”

    Yash’s tweet has now gone viral on the social media platform. It has received positive feedback from several people on Twitter.

    Yash Agarwal worked as a Public Policy Associate for Twitter India and South Asia, as per the deets mentioned on his LinkedIn profile. During these two years, his work for the Policy team in India and South Asia focused on external partnerships, government relations with state governments and union ministries, campaigns with civil society/NGOs, XFN efforts around elections, #TwitterForGood, civic integrity, and policy research analysis.

    Twitter employees were notified of the mass layoffs via email. Many employees have recently been removed from internal services such as Slack and official email. Ironically, these employees took to Twitter to announce their departure from Twitter’s payroll.

    According to internal documents obtained by Reuters, Musk intends to fire approximately 3,700 Twitter employees, or roughly half of the workforce, to cut costs and impose a demanding new work ethic.

    Also Read: Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: Microblogging platform starts sacking employees in India

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  • Pranksters show themselves as laid-off Twitter staff; Elon Musk reacts

    Pranksters show themselves as laid-off Twitter staff; Elon Musk reacts

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    On Friday,  pranksters fooled media outlets as news of the layoffs of Twitter’s former employees circulated online. During Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, some pranksters attempted to steal the spotlight. According to the New York Post, two pranksters dressed as laid-off Twitter employees and carried cardboard boxes outside the company’s headquarters in San Francisco.

    Skepticism quickly spread on social media. One of the pranksters introduced himself as “Rahul Ligma,” a reference to a popular internet meme, and spoke to reporters while holding a copy of Michelle Obama’s book “Becoming.” The other introduced himself as “Daniel Johnson.”

    Outside Twitter’s office, the pranksters spoke with prominent US media outlets. According to Bloomberg, Twitter’s internal slack channels “lit up with suspicion” that it was a hoax. While the Verge confirmed that the duo were not ex-Twitter employees and had perpetrated a hoax.

    Elon Musk responded to the prankster incident with a witty tweet saying “Ligma Johnson had it coming.”

    Musk added, “Comedy is now legal on Twitter.”

    Twitter fired four executives on October 28, including CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde. “The bird is free,” billionaire Musk tweeted after completing Twitter’s $44 billion takeover.

    Musk met with engineers and advertising executives after arriving at the company’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday.

    With the caption “let that sink in,” Musk posted a video, on Twitter, of himself entering Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters while carrying a kitchen sink. 

    Also Read: Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover: Who is funding the deal?

    Also Read: Elon Musk says Twitter to form content moderation council for THIS reason

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