Elon Musk Fires Thousands of Twitter Employees After Acquisition | Here's Why

A week after it was acquired by billionaire Elon Musk, Twitter terminated thousands of its employees in various departments.

It was a severe round of cost-cutting that happened on Friday, and it could change how one of the most influential social media platforms runs in the coming days.

According to CNN, many Twitter employees started posting Thursday night that their company email accounts had already been locked out ahead of the planned layoff notice. Some also posted blue heart and salute emojis to show they were out at the company.

Employees from different Twitter departments, such as marketing and communication, ethical AI, search, public policy, wellness, and other teams, had tweeted about being let go by Friday morning.

According to employee posts, members of the curation team who helped promote reliable information on the platform, including regarding elections, were also let go.

"Just got remotely logged out of my work laptop and removed from Slack," a Twitter employee wrote on the platform. "So sad it had to end this way."

Elon Musk Says Twitter Has Too Many Employees

According to Elon Musk, Twitter has too many employees and excessively emphasizes content moderation, platform safety, marketing, and product development.

While Twitter lost $221 million in revenue over the previous fiscal year, Musk paid $44 billion to buy out its shareholders.

Josh White, an assistant professor of finance at Vanderbilt University, noted that Twitter must boost its profit margins to pay back the debt necessary for the transaction.

Some of the best options are to cut labor or the infrastructure cost to do it. The Washington Post reported that managers asked workers this week to suggest ways for the company to save at least $500 million a year.

Cuts would be made to data centers and other software infrastructure the site needs to run, as well as to the contract workers who moderate Twitter content.

Musk tweeted early Friday that the company's primary revenue source, advertising, has seen a dramatic fall since his takeover.

Insiders familiar with Musk's plans told The Washington Post that nearly half of the workforce would be dismissed. According to CNN, Twitter had around 7,500 workers before Musk's takeover, which means some 3,700 employees were laid off.

In one of his first moves as majority shareholder of Twitter, Elon Musk fired some of the firm's top executives, including the CEO, general counsel, and chief financial officer.

Twitter Employees Sue Elon Musk

On behalf of Twitter employees, a small group of employees moved fast to file a class action lawsuit in a federal court in San Francisco on Thursday.

The case's lead attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, claimed that the action was filed ahead of time so that Twitter employees would not be taken advantage of and compelled to sign away their rights, the NPR reported.

"There's a lot of concern going on around Twitter employees about what would happen today when reportedly half the workforce would be let go," she noted.

According to the lawsuit, Twitter is firing employees without giving them enough notice, violating Californian and federal employment laws.

Under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, significant layoffs must be announced at least 60 days in advance.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Bert Hoover

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