Elon Musk leaves the Baron Investment Conference at the Metropolitan Opera House, Friday, Nov. 4, 2022, in New York. Workers prepare for widespread layoffs at Twitter as Musk overhauls the social platform. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) UPDATE 6:45 p.m Twitter began widespread layoffs on Friday as new owner Elon Musk overhauls the company, raising serious concerns about the chaos surrounding the social media platform and its ability to fight misinformation just days before US midterm elections. The speed and size of the cuts also opened Musk and Twitter to lawsuits. At least one was filed alleging that Twitter violated federal law by failing to provide the laid-off employees with the required notice. The San Francisco-based company told employees via email Thursday that they would find out Friday if they had been fired. About half of the company’s 7,500-strong workforce has been laid off, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and integrity, confirmed in a tweet. Musk tweeted late Friday that there was no choice but to cut jobs “when the company is losing over $4 million a day.” He did not give details of the daily losses at the company and said the workers who lost their jobs were offered three months. “Severance pay. No other social media platform comes close to Twitter as a place where public agencies and other vital service providers — boards of elections, police departments, utilities, schools and news outlets — keep people reliably informed. Many fear that Musk’s firings will destroy it and make it illegal. Roth said the company’s front-line moderation staff was the group least affected by the job cuts. He added that Twitter’s “efforts on election integrity — including addressing harmful misinformation that can suppress voting and combating state-sponsored information operations — remain a top priority.” Musk, meanwhile, tweeted that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged.” But a Twitter employee who spoke to The Associated Press on Friday said it will be much more difficult to complete that job starting next week after losing so many colleagues. “This will affect our ability to provide support to the election, for sure,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for job security. The employee said there is no “concrete sense of direction” other than what Musk says publicly on Twitter. “I follow his tweets and they affect how we prioritize our work,” the employee said. “It’s a very healthy indicator of what needs to be prioritized.” Several employees who tweeted that they had lost their jobs said Twitter had banned their entire teams, including one focused on human rights and global conflict, another that checked Twitter’s algorithms for bias in how to boost tweets, and a team of engineers dedicated to making the social platform more accessible for people with disabilities. Eddie Perez, director of Twitter’s social integrity group who resigned in September, said he feared the layoffs so close to the midterms could allow misinformation to “spread like wildfire” during the post-election vote-counting period. “I find it hard to believe that it doesn’t have a substantial impact on their ability to manage the volume of misinformation out there,” he said, adding that there simply may not be enough staff to compensate for it. Twitter employees have been expecting layoffs since Musk took the helm. He fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and removed the company’s board on his first day as owner. As the emailed alerts rolled out, many Twitter employees took to the platform to express their support — often simply writing blue heart emojis to signify the blue bird logo — and greeting emojis in replies to one another. . A Twitter executive said many employees found out they had been fired when they could no longer log into the company’s systems. The manager said the way the dismissals were carried out showed a “lack of care and consideration”. The manager, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity out of concern for job security, said managers had not received any notice about who would be fired. “For me as a manager, it was excruciating because I had to know what my team was going to be like through tweets and through texts and phone calls,” the employee said. “That’s a really hard way to care for your people. And managers at Twitter really care about their people.” A coalition of civil rights groups stepped up their calls on Friday for brands to stop buying ads on the platform. The layoffs are especially dangerous in the run-up to elections, the groups warned, and for transgender users and other groups facing violence inspired by hate speech proliferating online. In a tweet on Friday, Musk blamed activists for what he described as a “massive drop in revenue” since he took over Twitter late last week. Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg said there is “nothing Musk can say to appease advertisers when he keeps the company in a constant state of uncertainty and turmoil and appears indifferent to Twitter employees and the law.” “Musk needs advertisers more than he needs himself,” he said. “Removing ads from Twitter is a quick and painless decision for most brands.” A lawsuit was filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of a fired employee and three others who were blocked from their work accounts. It claims Twitter broke the law by failing to provide the required notice. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice statute requires employers with at least 100 workers to disclose layoffs involving 500 or more employees, regardless of whether a company is public or private, as Twitter is now. The layoffs affected Twitter offices around the world. In the UK, workers will be required by law to be notified, said Emma Bartlett, a partner specializing in employment and partnership law at CM Murray LLP. The speed of the layoffs could also open Musk and Twitter to discrimination claims if it turns out, for example, that they disproportionately affected women, people of color or older workers. ORIGINAL 12:10 p.m Twitter began widespread layoffs on Friday as new owner Elon Musk overhauls the social platform. The company had told workers via email that they would know by 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT) if they had been fired. The email did not say how many of the approximately 7,500 employees would lose their jobs. Musk did not confirm or correct investor Ron Barron at a conference in New York on Friday when he asked the billionaire CEO of Tesla how much money he would save after “laying off half of Twitter.” Musk, speaking at Baron’s annual investor conference, responded by talking about Twitter’s ongoing cost and revenue challenges and blamed activists who this week called on major companies to stop advertising on the platform. Musk himself did not comment on the layoffs. “Activist groups have managed to cause a huge drop in ad revenue on Twitter and we’ve done our best to appease them and nothing is working,” Musk said. Some employees of the San Francisco-based company tweeted earlier that they had already lost access to their work accounts. They and others posted messages of support using the hashtag #OneTeam. The email to staff said the job cuts were “necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.” Twitter employees have been expecting layoffs since Musk took the company’s helm. Already, he has fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, on his first day as Twitter owner. Musk had also removed the company’s board and installed himself as the sole board member. On Thursday night, many Twitter employees took to the platform to show their support — often simply posting blue heart emojis to signify Twitter’s blue bird logo — and greeting emojis in replies to one another. As of Friday, Musk and Twitter had not given any public notice of the upcoming layoffs, according to a spokesman for the California Department of Employment Development. This is even though the Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notification statute requires employers with at least 100 employees to disclose layoffs involving 500 or more employees, regardless of whether a company is publicly traded or privately held. A class-action lawsuit was filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court on behalf of a fired employee and three others who were locked out of their work accounts. He claims that Twitter intends to lay off more employees and has broken the law by failing to provide the required notice. The layoffs come at a difficult time for social media companies as advertisers cut back and new entrants — notably TikTok — threaten older platforms like Twitter and Facebook. In a tweet on Friday, while workers were learning if they had lost their jobs, Musk blamed activists for what he described as a “massive drop in revenue” since he took over Twitter late last week. He did not say how much revenue was down. Major companies including General Motors, General Mills and Audi have all paused advertising on Twitter amid questions about how it will fare under Musk. Volkswagen Group announced on Friday that it is recommending its brands, which include Skoda, Seat, Cupra, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche and Ducati, stop paid activities until Twitter issues revised brand safety guidelines. Musk has tried to appease advertisers, but they remain concerned about whether content moderation will remain so strict and whether staying on Twitter could tarnish their brands. In his tweet blaming activists for reducing revenue, Musk said “nothing has changed with the content hold.” Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg said there is “a little…
