Elon Musk has started his layoffs at Twitter.
On Thursday night, employees at Twitter were notified by email that the company would be “reducing our global workforce” on Friday, November 4th. Now, many employees at the company are already out of a job.
Musk is expected to lay off as many as half of the employees that work at Twitter. The company, before Friday, employed an estimated 7,500 employees so, if the layoffs reach the levels that are expected, thousands of people are losing their jobs today. The email sent to employees, which was picked up by The Verge, not only said that the company would be undergoing the layoffs on Friday, but that Twitter’s offices would be shut down on Friday while the mass exodus happened.
The layoffs, while unverified exactly how widespread since it is happening in real time, are certainly happening. Many Twitter employees took to the social media platform to announce they had been laid off from the company throughout Friday.
Musk, after officially acquiring Twitter a week ago, has taken no time in making sweeping changes at the company. From firing the executive team, dissolving the board of directors, potentially ressurecting Vine, and charging $8 per month for Twitter Blue, which would now include verification, the billionaire is quickly reshaping the company into what he wants it to be.
You can read the letter that was sent to employees at the company on Thursday night below:
Team,
In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. 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.
Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder.
– If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email.
– If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.
– If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email peoplequestions@twitter.com.
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. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home.
We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.
We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process.
Thank you,
