Elon Musk The new owner of TwitterHe defended laying off nearly half of the platform’s workforce, saying he had “no choice”.
50% of Twitter employees were fired Friday, according to Yoel Roth, the social media giant’s head of safety and integrity.
In a tweet, Musk said, “In terms of Twitter’s reduction in power, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing more than $4 million a day.”
Musk, the world’s richest man, emphasized that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains unchanged”.
On Friday, Twitter Inc temporarily closed its offices after telling employees that they will be notified by email later in the day if they will be laid off.
Twitter had 7,500 workers before the Musk takeover, which means about 3,700 jobs were lost.
The billionaire founder of SpaceX, Tesla and PayPal is seeking to cut costs on the social platform that he acquired just a week ago for $44 billion (44.9 billion euros).
In a tweet defending the layoffs, Musk said all departing employees were offered “3 months of termination, which is 50% more than required by law.”
Reports of mass layoffs on Friday raised concerns about content moderation, with NGOs and activists claiming the changes could mean more harmful material or misinformation on the site.
Tweets from Twitter employees said teams responsible for communications, content regulation, human rights, and machine learning ethics were among those that were screwed up, as were some production and engineering teams.
“To be absolutely clear, Twitter’s strong commitment to policing content has remained virtually unchanged,” Twitter said Friday night, claiming that “hate speech” has “fallen” from normal levels this week.
Advertisers have pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation in recent days.
But in a tweet posted later that day, Roth said most of the 2,000 content moderators who work on the “front lines” were not affected.
He said the “strength reduction” affected about 15% of workers in Twitter’s trust and safety organization – compared to what he said was a 50% reduction across the company.
Roth added that fighting disinformation remained a “top priority” during the US midterm elections. Most Americans will vote on Tuesday, in a major test of Joe Biden’s presidency.
How Twitter employees take the news
The company said Twitter offices were temporarily closed Friday and access to all badges was suspended in order to “help ensure the safety of every employee as well as Twitter’s systems and customer data.”
Some employees have tweeted their access to the company’s IT system, fretting if it indicates they’ve been laid off.
A user with the account SBkcrn, whose profile is described as a former large community manager on Twitter, tweeted, “Looks like I’m out of work. I’ve been logged out of my remote work laptop and removed from Slack.”
User Rachel Boone tweeted: “Last Thursday in the San Francisco office, my last day on Twitter was. 8 months pregnant with a 9 month old baby. Just cut off access to my laptop.”
Twitter employees expressed their frustration about layoffs on the social network, using the hashtag #OneTeam.
A class action lawsuit was filed Thursday against Twitter by its employees, who argued that the company was conducting mass layoffs without providing 60 days’ notice, in violation of federal and California law.
The lawsuit also asked a federal court in San Francisco to issue an order to restrict Twitter from urging laid-off employees to sign documents without informing them of the case’s suspension.
Musk directed Twitter teams to find up to $1 billion (1.02 billion euros) in annual infrastructure cost savings, according to two sources familiar with the matter and an internal Slack letter reviewed by Reuters.
He has already liquidated the company’s top ranks, dismissed its CEO and chief financial and legal officials. Others, including those at the top of the company’s advertising, marketing and human resources departments, have left for the past week.
For those remaining employees, there are also rumors that the remote work policy that Twitter has spearheaded during the pandemic is about to expire.
‘Chaos and uncertainty’
Controversy clouded Musk’s first week as the owner of Twitter.
Two company-wide meetings were scheduled, only to be called off hours later. Reuters employees told Reuters they were left to gather information through media reports, private message groups, and anonymous forums.
The layoffs, which had long been expected, have cooled the popular Twitter corporate culture that many of its employees have praised.
“If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please go home,” Twitter said in the email on Thursday.
Shortly after the email reached employee mailboxes, hundreds of people flocked to the company’s Slack channels to say goodbye, two employees told Reuters.
The sources added that someone invited Musk to join the channel.
“Devoted student. Bacon advocate. Beer scholar. Troublemaker. Falls down a lot. Typical coffee enthusiast.”