A wild company-wide email has informed Twitter employees that their jobs are on the line, just days after controversial billionaire Elon Musk took over the platform.
The email revealed that mass layoffs were planned, with some expecting the 7,500-person workforce to potentially shrink by 50% under Musk’s leadership.
“Team, in an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we will be going through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the email said, according to the Washington Post.
“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 company’s future success.”
Staff were told to go home and not return to the office on Friday as the cuts began.
The team now faces an anxious wait, with employees set to receive a second email with the brutal subject line: “Your role on Twitter” informing them of their future within the company.
“We recognize that this is an incredibly difficult experience to go through, whether it affects you or not,” the email continued.
“We are grateful for your contributions on Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process.”
The email was Musk’s first to all employees since taking over last week, after buying the site for $44 billion.
It is understood that few areas of the business will be safe from the sacrifice, with the publication reporting that positions within the “sales, trust and security, marketing, product, engineering and legal teams” are up for grabs.
It comes after Musk immediately fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal, as well as head of legal, trust and security policy Vijaya Gadde, who was the person behind the decision to permanently ban the former president of the United States Donald Trump of the platform. following the insurrection of the Capitol of January 6.
Since then, a host of other senior executives have also resigned or resigned, with the News from New York reporting that managers were ordered to prepare lists of high and low performing team members.
Advertisers are jumping ship
Meanwhile, Musk’s takeover of Twitter already faces a major hurdle as major advertisers turn their backs on the company.
So far, heavyweights such as General Mills and Volkswagen have suspended their Twitter advertising amid mounting pressure on the Tesla founder to turn his latest foray into a success.
“We have stopped advertising on Twitter,” said Kelsey Roemhildt, a spokeswoman for General Mills, whose brands include Cheerios and Häagen-Dazs.
“As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend,” the spokesperson added.
It comes after the Wall Street Journal claimed that Volkswagen, Pfizer and Mondelez International were also pausing their ads, following in the footsteps of General Motors, which was the first big name to drop the needle.
The advertiser revolt comes amid fears that Musk will allow the site to slide into hate speech and misinformation, given his previous advocacy of “free speech,” and will also allow controversial past users such as Donald Trump return to the platform.
However, Musk has sought to reassure the public and advertisers that Twitter will not become a “free-for-all hellscape” under his control, before proposing a plan to charge $8 a month to verify accounts, which has been widely criticized.
– with cables
Read related topics: Elon Musk