The ax has begun to cut down the dead wood at Twitter—at least what Musk considers dead wood.
The layoffs have begun this morning, according to a companywide email, culling the social media service’s 7,500-person work force a little over a week after completing his blockbuster buyout.
On Friday morning, Twitter temporarily closed its offices after telling employees they will be informed by email later in the day whether they are being laid off. The move follows a week of uncertainty about the company’s future under the new owner, Elon Musk. Workers were instructed to go home and not go to the offices on Friday as the cuts proceeded. The message, which came from a generic address and was signed “Twitter,” did not detail the total number of layoffs.
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global work force,” the email said. “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.”
About half of Twitter’s workers appeared set to lose their jobs, according to previous internal messages and an investor, though the final count may take time to become clear. As the email landed in employee inboxes on Thursday evening, workers posted salute emojis and heart emojis in Slack, the messaging service. Later in the evening, some employees said they had lost access to the company’s systems, a possible prelude to being laid off.
Early Friday morning, the company began to notify some employees that they had been laid off. The emails, some of which were seen by The Times, varied by an employee’s region or country. One New York-based worker received an email saying their job had been “impacted” but that they would remain employed through a separation date in early February.
“During this time, you will be on a Non-Working Notice period and your access to Twitter systems will be deactivated,” read the email, which was also signed “Twitter.” Employees would receive details on severance “within a week.”
Musk, the world’s richest man, faces pressure to make Twitter work financially. The deal was the largest leveraged buyout of a technology company in history. The billionaire also loaded about $13 billion in debt on Twitter for the acquisition and is on the hook to pay about $1 billion a year in interest payments. But Twitter has often lost money, and its cash flow is not robust. Musk is seeking ways to cut costs so the company is less expensive to operate and may turn a profit.
