Elon Musk: Billionaire says he had had ‘no choice’ over firings as Twitter losing $4m per day

‘This action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward,’ a memo to staff reportedly says

Elon Musk to layoff more than 3,000 Twitter employees

Elon Musk said he had “no choice” but to fire around 3,700 Twitter employees worldwide as the company is losing $4m per day.

The billionaire took to Twitter to break his silence on the firings on Friday afternoon.

“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required,” he tweeted.

Earlier in the day, thousands of employees at the company ost their jobs, with staff notified about the layoffs in an email on Thursday.

“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,” the internal memo to the employees noted.

“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.”

Mr Musk has already made several changes to the company, starting with the firing of three of its top executives, including chief executive Parag Agrawal.

He had earlier told prospective investors that he intended to reduce the company’s staff from around 7,500 down to just over 2,000.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday that he planned to cut about 3,700 jobs at Twitter – about half the company’s workforce.

Key Points

• Twitter sued for mass layoffs without enough notice
• Twitter employees are calling Friday 'The Snap' and posting Thanos memes
• Employees received emails saying layoffs are starting today
• Musk breaks silence on Twitter firings
• Twitter’s Head of Safety & Integrity insists ‘core moderation capabilities remain in place'

[4 November 2022 11:00 · Adam Smith]

Elon Musk kills ‘algorithmic transparency' team

Among the numerous Twitter firings includes Elon Musk killing the team behind algorithmic choice and transparency.

[4 November 2022 12:30 · Adam Smith]

Employees in the UK are waiting to be fired

Many Twitter employees in the UK have been locked out of their work accounts, without knowing if they have their jobs.

Updates will reportedly come by 4pm today.

[4 November 2022 14:00 · Adam Smith]

Twitter exodus should ‘reshape industry'

Simon Balmain, a senior community manager for Twitter in the UK, told the BBC that he had been logged out of his work laptop and Slack.

“Everyone got an email saying that there was going to be a large reduction in headcount, and then around an hour later, folks started getting their laptops remotely wiped and access to Slack and Gmail revoked,” he said.

“I was working mostly LA (Los Angeles) hours because of the projects I was on, so was still awake when it happened.

He added the “exodus of talent” from this layoff will reshape the whole technology industry as we know it.

[4 November 2022 15:00 · Adam Smith]

Verification under Elon Musk

Twitter Blue subscribers would not need their identities authenticated to get the check mark, the New York Times reports.

Internal documents say there would be “an interim period where the check would be on both Blue subscribers accounts and previously verified users.”

Verified users that do not subscribe to Twitter Blue will lose the check marks.

There are currently over 423,000 verified accounts on Twitter.

[4 November 2022 18:00 · Adam Smith]

Is Elon Musk’s plan for Twitter the same as Bill Gates’ for email?

Elon Musk’s notion to charge its most prominent users, or enact paid-for messaging, is similar to the plans of another tech billionaire.

Bloomberg recalls how, in 2003, Bill Gates suggested users be required to pay for a digital stamp to use email - but the idea was widely hated.

In a year, he had backtracked. “We firmly believe that monetary charges would be inappropriate and contrary to the fundamental purpose of the Internet as an extremely efficient and inexpensive medium for communications,” he wrote in 2004.

[4 November 2022 21:29 · Graeme Massie]

Elon Musk fires Twitter’s human rights team as part of sweeping layoffs at platform

Elon Musk fired Twitter’s entire human rights team as part of sweeping layoffs the billionaire implemented at the social media platform.

The billionaire fired employees across Twitter on Friday, a week after the world’s richest person closed his protracted $44bn deal for the San Francisco-based company.

[4 November 2022 21:49 · Graeme Massie]

British tabloid gives Elon Musk the ‘lettuce’ treatment

The Daily Star famously did a countdown of who would last longer, a lettuce or former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, with the lettuce coming out victorious.

Now the newspaper has run a lettuce on its front page next to a picture of Mr Musk, after a Twitter employee took the challenge amid widespread firings at the social media platform the billionaire bought for $44bn.

[4 November 2022 22:01 · Graeme Massie]

Twitter employees ‘treated appallingly’

“Twitter is treating its people appallingly”, said Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect union.

“These are people who have invested their time, effort and enthusiasm in building the platform, which risks being thrown away.

“The government must make clear to Twitter’s new owners that we won’t accept a digital P&O and that no-one is above the law in the UK, including Big Tech barons. That must include making sure UK staff’s full employment rights are properly protected.

“We are supporting our members at Twitter and will be working with them to defend them and their livelihoods.

[4 November 2022 23:01 · Graeme Massie]

Twitter sued for mass layoffs

A class-action lawsuit has already been filed against Twitter.

The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act stops large companies from firing employees en masse without at least 60 days notice.

“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed Thursday’s complaint, said, Bloomberg reports.

[4 November 2022 23:15 · Graeme Massie]

Twitter’s Head of Safety & Integrity insists ‘core moderation capabilities remain in place'

Yoel Roth took to Twitter to try and reassure users and advertisers that the large-scale layoffs at the company had not impact its moderation capabilities.

“While we said goodbye to incredibly talented friends and colleagues yesterday, our core moderation capabilities remain in place,” he wrote on Friday.

“Yesterday’s reduction in force affected approximately 15% of our Trust & Safety organization (as opposed to approximately 50% cuts company-wide), with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact. Last week, for security reasons, we restricted access to our internal tools for some users, including some members of my team. Most of the 2,000+ content moderators working on front-line review were not impacted, and access will be fully restored in the coming days.”

And he insisted that Twitter remained focussed on “election integrity” just days before the midterm elections.

“With early voting underway in the US, our efforts on election integrity — including harmful misinformation that can suppress the vote and combatting state-backed information operations — remain a top priority.”