Twitter begins mass layoffs and temporarily closes its offices

Thousands of employees of Twitter They were called to stay home this Friday awaiting a round of layoffs that could halve their payroll, within the framework of a restructuring of the company launched by its new owner, the billionaire Elon Musk.

An unsigned memo sent to the entire company on Thursday, seen by AFP, said Twitter employees would receive news about their job prospects in an email on Friday.

“In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy course, we will begin the difficult process of reducing our global workforce,” the message said.

The email gave no figures, but according to The Washington Post and The New York Times, about half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, mostly based in San Franciscothey will be fired.

Employees have been bracing for downsizing since Musk, the world’s richest man, completed his $44 billion takeover of the company last week, and quickly moved to dissolve its board of directors and fire its CEO. CEO and senior managers.

Some workers had already found out on Friday that they had been fired and turned to the blue bird network to say goodbye to their colleagues.

“I don’t have a job,” tweeted former employee Blake Herzinger, as others reported losing access to the company’s servers and email accounts.

The email sent to Twitter employees told them that will not show up for work on Friday.

“Our offices will be temporarily closed and all access credentials will be suspended,” the message said. He also noted that Twitter is going through an “incredibly challenging” time.

“We recognize that this will affect a number of people who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but unfortunately this action is necessary to ensure the success of the company in the future,” it said.

Late Thursday, five recently laid-off Twitter employees filed a class action lawsuit against the company for failing to receive the 60-day notice required by U.S. law for mass layoffs under the WARN Act, according to the text of the complaint. consulted by AFP.

Musk complains

To finance his purchase of Twitter, Musk heavily borrowed the company, whose financial health is already fragile after posting significant deficits in the first two quarters of the year.

Musk, a 51-year-old South African-born engineer with US and Canadian citizenship and also the head of Tesla and SpaceX, took out $13 billion worth of loans, which will have to be repaid by Twitter and not by him.

He also sold about $15.5 billion of his Tesla stock twice, in April and August, and backed $12.5 billion of loans with his Tesla shares.

On Friday, Musk blamed Twitter’s falling revenue on “a group of activists who put pressure on advertisers even though nothing changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.”

“It’s really nonsense! They are trying to destroy free speech in America,” he added.

Advertisements are Twitter’s main source of income and Musk has tried to calm things down by ensuring that the platform will not become “hell for everyone”.

But big companies like General Motors and Volkswagen stopped advertising on Twitter after the acquisition.

Civil rights groups have raised concerns that Musk allows unchecked misinformation and hate speech on the social network and reinstates blocked accounts, including that of former US President Donald Trump, who was expelled shortly after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill. on January 6, 2021.

Musk announced that he will form a committee to assess the social network’s future policy on posts and the reinstatement of blocked accounts.

One of the main ideas raised by Musk since his takeover is the establishment of a subscription of eight dollars a month that allows users to have their account certified and be less exposed to advertising.

But this project has raised a lot of criticism and reluctance, especially among users who already have an authenticated account.