Elon Musk came in dropping the hammer down. Hundreds of Seattle Twitter workers among those that are being laid off. Some are calling it Twitter’s layoff spree. So far, it has been reported that last week 208 Seattle workers were let go. Jan. 4 is the last day of work for the Washington state-based Twitter workers cut from the company Friday, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification service records.
Musk has yet to address the company and its employees since the takeover. On Twitter, Musk contended that all laid-off employees would be paid until the layoff went into effect. Nearly 3,700 workers have been laid off companywide. Employees received an email warning of the layoffs Friday, about a week after Elon Musk completed his $44 billion Twitter acquisition. Twitter had a 7,500-person workforce.
Employees said that after Musk’s takeover of Twitter, there were “intense” internal conversations about cost-cutting, the former employee said. “But then we realized we were the cut.”
Then this happened. There was a bit of a relook for some that were let go. Twitter has reportedly reached out to dozens of employees who lost their jobs and asked them to return. Some of those who are being asked to return were reportedly laid off by mistake. Others were let go before management realized that their work and experience may be necessary to build the new features Musk envisions.
However, several employees reported learning they’d been laid off only when their access to company systems was cut abruptly. Others received emails on their personal accounts informing they had been laid off.
Twitter has close to 3,700 employees remaining, according to people familiar with the matter. Musk is pushing those who remain at the company to move quickly in shipping new features. In some cases, Bloomberg reported, employees have even slept at the office to meet new deadlines.
