Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the social media company’s workforce, in a bid to drive down costs after his $44-billion acquisition, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Twitter’s new owner aims to inform affected staffers Friday,
said the people, who requested anonymity discussing nonpublic plans. Musk also
intends to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking
remaining employees to report to offices — though some exceptions could be
made, the people said.
Musk and a team of advisors have been weighing a range of
scenarios for job cuts and other policy changes at San Francisco-based Twitter,
the people said, adding that the terms of the head-count reduction could still
change. In one scenario being considered, laid-off workers will be offered 60
days’ worth of severance pay, two of the people said.
A spokesperson for Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Musk is under pressure to find ways to slash costs of a
business for which he says he overpaid. The billionaire agreed to pay $54.20 a
share in April just as markets tumbled. He then tried for months to get out of
the transaction, alleging that the company misled him about the prevalence of
fake accounts.
Twitter sued to force Musk to make good on his agreement,
and in recent weeks, Musk caved, resigning himself to closing the deal at the
agreed-upon terms. The take-private deal closed Thursday.
Twitter employees have been bracing for layoffs ever since
Musk took over and fired the top executive team, including Chief Executive
Parag Agrawal.
Over the weekend, a few employees with director and vice
president jobs were cut, people familiar with the matter said. Other leaders
were asked to make lists of employees on their teams who could be cut, the
people said.
Senior personnel on the product teams were asked to target a
50% reduction in workers, a person familiar with the matter said this week.
Engineers and director-level staff from Tesla reviewed the lists, the person
said.
Layoff lists were drawn up and ranked based on individuals’
contributions to Twitter’s code during their time at the company, the people
said. The assessment was made by both Tesla personnel and Twitter managers.
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