HOUSTON, Nov 4 — Elon Musk will begin layoffs at Twitter starting Friday.
According to Anadolu Agency citing various news outlets, a company e-mail sent Thursday evening by the social media giant’s new boss notified workers that they will receive a notice by 12 pm Friday that informs them if they are staying or going.
“Team, 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 Musk in the e-mail, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
“If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email,” the memo continued. “If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email”.
Musk has acted swiftly since his US$44 billion takeover of Twitter last week, firing CEO Parag Agrawal first and canning the entire board of directors, leaving himself temporarily as the sole director of the platform.
The layoff announcements don’t come as a surprise, as Musk announced after the acquisition that he planned to lay off up to half of the company’s 7,500 staff members.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO also alluded to the company’s staffing inadequacies when he first entertained purchasing the company earlier this year and tweeted last week that the “most messed up” thing at Twitter right now is that “there seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding.”
It reported that Musk, in the e-mail, said that Twitter had to “go through the difficult process of reducing (its) global workforce on Friday” and that the move “is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
The memo added that “to help ensure the safety” of employees and Twitter’s systems, the company’s offices “will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.” All employees were asked to stay at home on Friday and wait for an update on their employment status regarding their fate at the company.
Since Twitter is now a privately held company, it purportedly does not have to answer to shareholders about the job cuts.
“We recognise 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 continued.
The message concluded by acknowledging that it will be “an incredibly challenging experience to go through” for the workforce.
