Comment SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk is launching mass layoffs at Twitter, drastically reducing the company’s workforce to 7,500 people and launching a wholesale overhaul of the company. An email was sent to company employees late Thursday notifying employees of plans to cut jobs, telling them that by 9 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, employees would receive an email with the subject line: “Your role at Twitter.” Those who keep their jobs will be notified in their company email. Those who miss them will be notified via their personal email. “Team, In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we will be going through the difficult process of downsizing our global workforce on Friday,” the email said. “We recognize that this will affect a number of people who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success going forward.” On Elon Musk’s Twitter, the silence has confused employees Anyone who did not receive an email by 5 p.m. pacific time was told to contact the company. The offices will be closed on Friday. “We recognize that this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether you are affected or not,” the email continued. “We appreciate your input on Twitter and your patience as we move through this process.” It was Musk’s team’s first official corporate communication with his staff. Club, In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we’ll be going through the difficult process of downsizing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will affect some people who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success going forward. Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to notify affected individuals as quickly as possible, communication for this process will be via email. Until 9 a.m. PST on Friday, November 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your role on Twitter. Check your email, including your spam folder. If your employment is not affected, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email. If your employment is affected, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email. If you do not receive an email from [email protected] by 5:00 PM PST on Friday, November 4, please email [email protected] To ensure the security of every employee, as well as our Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badged access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please go home. We recognize that this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, affected or not. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter’s policies prohibiting you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere. We appreciate your input on Twitter and your patience as we move through this process. Thanks. Twitter — Email obtained by The Washington Post In response to the email, dozens of Twitter employees posted a blue heart to say goodbye to their colleagues. The same hearts were posted one after the other on a long scroll in the Slack company. Musk is lashing out at advertisers as he looks for new revenue streams Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Musk is under pressure to recoup an investment in a site he has admitted he overpaid for. He took ownership of Twitter last week after striking a deal to buy the site for $44 billion this spring, before trying to back out and then rejoin the deal as a trial date loomed in a court battle. Analysts have pegged Twitter’s true value at closer to $25 billion. Musk has also taken out a loan of more than $12 billion to finance the purchase of the site, according to financial filings, putting pressure on him to cut costs and stay solvent — in the face of about $1 billion a year in interest on that debt. Musk is the CEO of the new company. His deputies include his lawyer, Alex Spiro, investor David Sacks and Jared Birchall, who runs Musk’s family office. The layoff decision came after a weeklong review of Twitter, in which Musk and his deputies imposed a product freeze that halted development of Twitter’s internal projects, brought in Tesla engineers to review Twitter’s code and let employees they wait anxiously in an information vacuum for direction and leadership of the company. Musk was expected to move ahead with plans to lay off about 50 percent of Twitter’s staff, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss candidly confidential plans. Musk began his tenure at Twitter a week early, ousting previous executives, including the CEO, CFO and general counsel. The layoffs starting Friday were expected to affect sales, trust and safety, marketing, product, engineering and legal teams – targeting the company across the board. In addition to the layoffs, Musk is also expected to make drastic cuts in other parts of the business — some so deep that employees worry about being able to keep Twitter running, according to internal documents seen by the Washington Post and people familiar with the matter. plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. In messages to engineers this week, managers asked workers to suggest ways to find at least $500 million in annual cuts across the company, according to the documents and the people. The cuts will include data centers and other software infrastructure needed to run the site, as well as targeting the workforce that performs content moderation for Twitter. Documents detail plans to eliminate Twitter’s workforce Earlier Thursday, amid reports of looming layoffs, Twitter employees braced for what seemed inevitable, refreshing their internal tools like messaging apps for the latest — as the possibility of losing their jobs loomed large. . But information remained sparse until the email arrived later in the day. At Twitter’s offices, employees said tearful goodbyes, exchanged contact information and tried to make their documentation easily accessible for the staff who would be staying on. They wanted to ensure their colleagues could keep the site up and running in their absence. How to save, transfer and delete data on company-issued laptops before leaving a job Before Musk took over the site, Twitter had already planned broad layoffs that would affect up to a quarter of staff, according to people familiar with the plans. The Post previously reported the company’s board planned to cut thousands of jobs as part of an effort to save $700 million in labor costs. Will Oremus, Cat Zakrzewski and Elizabeth Dwoskin contributed to this report.
