Fear and dread spread across Twitter Inc offices on Thursday as 7,500 employees from San Francisco to Singapore feared for job cuts that were planned to hit about half of the staff.
Elon Musk will begin laying off Twitter employees on Friday,
according to a companywide email, culling the social media service’s
7,500-person work force a little over a week after completing his blockbuster
buyout.
Twitter employees were notified in the email that the
layoffs were set to begin, according to a copy of the message seen by The New
York Times. Workers were instructed to go home and not go to the offices on
Friday as the cuts proceeded. The message, which came from a generic address
and was signed “Twitter,” did not detail the total number of layoffs.
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go
through the difficult process of reducing our global work force,” the email
said. “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.”
About half of Twitter’s workers appeared set to lose their
jobs, according to previous internal messages and an investor, though the final
count may take time to become clear. As the email landed in employee inboxes on
Thursday evening, workers posted salute emojis and heart emojis in Slack, the
messaging service. Later in the evening, some employees said they had lost
access to the company’s systems, a possible prelude to being laid off.
Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter on
Oct. 27 and immediately fired its chief executive and other top managers. More
executives have since resigned or were let go, while managers were asked to
draw up lists of high- and low-performing employees, likely with an eye toward
job cuts. Mr. Musk also brought in more than 50 engineers and employees from
his other companies, including the electric carmaker Tesla, to review the
layoff lists of Twitter workers and the social platform’s technology.
The world’s richest man faces pressure to make Twitter work
financially. The deal was the largest leveraged buyout of a technology company
in history. The billionaire also loaded about $13 billion in debt on Twitter
for the acquisition and is on the hook to pay about $1 billion a year in
interest payments. But Twitter has often lost money, and its cash flow is not
robust. Mr. Musk may benefit from cutting costs so the company is less
expensive to operate.
Mr. Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
Twitter’s layoffs are unlikely to be the largest in the tech
industry by total number. The computer manufacturer HP cut 24,600 of its
employees, about 7.5 percent, in 2008. It later cut tens of thousands more,
reaching about 30 percent of its work force.
More recently, other tech companies have slashed jobs. On
Thursday, Lyft said it would lay off 13 percent, or about 650, of its 5,000
employees. Stripe, a payment processing platform, said it would cut 14 percent
of its jobs, or roughly 1,100.
Jesse Lehrich, a founder of Accountable Tech, an industry
advocacy organization, said the layoffs amounted to an arbitrary purge just
days before the midterm elections on Tuesday.
“There is nothing visionary or innovative about summarily
firing” workers by email, he said, especially people who have “specialized
expertise and deep institutional knowledge” and before Mr. Musk “even seems to
have a basic grasp of the business.”
While federal and California laws require companies to
provide advance notice of mass layoffs, it was not clear whether Mr. Musk had
done so. A spokesman for California’s Employment Development Department said on
Thursday evening that it had received no such notices from Twitter, which is
based in San Francisco and is expected to report mass layoffs to the agency.
Under the terms of his deal to acquire Twitter, Mr. Musk
agreed to keep employee compensation and benefits the same for one year.
Twitter workers are typically paid at least two months’ salary and the cash
value of equity they were scheduled to receive within three months of a layoff
date, according to an internal benefits summary.
Rumors of impending layoffs had been swirling at the
company. On Wednesday, employees took note of a Slack message that suggested
3,738 people could be laid off. The message noted that changes could still be
made to the list.
On Wednesday evening, some employees circulated a “Layoff
Guide” with tips on corporate surveillance and employment rights. One worker
created software to help colleagues download important emails and documents. He
was later fired, he said.
Those Who Are Celebrating: Elon Musk’s six-month path to
buying Twitter was a waking nightmare for many people involved. But the deal
elicited excitement from various groups.
On Thursday, workers got other signals that their workplace
was changing. Twitter’s “Days of Rest,” which are monthly days off so employees
can rest and recharge, were removed from their calendars, two people with
knowledge of the matter said. Some workers also noticed that the employee
directory had been taken offline, according to internal chats seen by The
Times.
“Has the red wedding started?” one employee wrote on Slack,
a reference to a massacre scene in “Game of Thrones.” Nine minutes later, the
company sent the email informing workers of the layoffs. Employees who will
keep their jobs would receive a message saying so on their corporate accounts,
the message said, while employees being laid off would be notified on their
personal accounts.
At Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco late Thursday,
some employees milled about in one of the building lobbies, still wearing their
corporate badges that grant them access to the premises. Some had drinks in
hand from a bar attached to Twitter’s office and refreshed their phones for
news about cuts.
Parker Lyons, a Twitter employee, tweeted a photo of a woman
in a fetal position after the email hit. “8:59am notification,” he tweeted,
referring to the latest time that layoff notifications were set to arrive on
Friday.
By keeping workers out of Twitter’s offices on Friday, those
who are laid off will be blocked from taking any items from the company. “To
help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer
data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be
suspended,” the email said.
This also means that many Twitter employees are likely to
find out about their job status from their homes.
“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience
to go through, whether or not you are impacted,” the email continued. “We are
grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move
through this process.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment