Thousands of contract workers have been laid off over the weekend at Twitter without any warning.
Twitter has reportedly fired thousands of contract workers as Elon Musk continues to implement aggressive measures to bring the social media giant back on its feet. According to Platformer, an estimated 4400 out of 5500 contact workers have been impacted by job cuts.
Other outlets, including Axis and CNBC, claim the staff were not given any heads up before being laid off. CNBC reported the terminated staff only discovered they had been let go after losing access to Slack and other work systems over the weekend. Some of Twitter’s contract workers were based in India as well.
According to an internal mail sent to contract workers and obtained by Business Insider, Twitter explains that the jobs cuts are part of a "reprioritization and savings exercise." Twitter’s internal communications team have reportedly laid off, sources tell CNBC.
Ever since Elon Musk took control of Twitter in a $44 billion deal, he has been taking stringent measures to reduce the workforce. The social network giant recently laid off half of the company’s workforce with little-to-no notice. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey apologized last week for “growing too quickly,” just a day after Twitter let go of thousands of its employees.
After taking over the platform, Elon Musk immediately fired Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Seal, as well as the head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadder. Since then, Twitter has seen a string of high-profile exists, including the head of content moderation leaving the company.
Musk has been brutal about a potential Twitter bankruptcy. Last week, Musk told employees to brace for “difficult times ahead.” According to an email obtained by CNBC, Musk wants employees to be in a Twitter office for at least 40 hours a week. He wants to change the business model, with a focus on generating at least half its revenues from subscriptions and being less reliant on advertising.
An industry-wide slowdown has rattled Silicon Valley. Facebook parent Meta recently announced extensive layoffs, shedding 11,000 jobs, or about 13 per cent of its staff. Calling the layoffs “some of the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company over hired people during the pandemic but later realized the ultra boom isn’t sustainable.
Most contract employees working with Twitter did not receive any advance notice and found out only after losing access to the company’s internal emails and communications systems, it said.
Mass firings spanning both U.S.-based and global contract employees reportedly affected teams working in content moderation, real estate, marketing, engineering, and other departments.
Twitter in an internal email sent to contractors explained that job cuts are part of “reprioritization and savings exercise”, and that Monday, November 14, would be the last working day for employees.
Twitter terminated some 4,400-5,500 contractors, on Saturday, without advance notice, according to a report by tech newsletter Platformer.
The cuts come weeks after Twitter laid off nearly half its employees, which hit trust and safety issues the hardest
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