Twitter, bought by Elon Musk last week, on Friday began a wave of global layoffs that could cut its payroll in half and told employees it would temporarily close its offices. “To ensure the security of each employee, as well as Twitter’s systems and data, our offices will be temporarily closed and access to all tokens will be suspended.the California company said in an internal email seen by AFP on Thursday.
The message indicates to employees that they will be notified by email whether or not their jobs have been eliminated, without specifying the number of positions involved. According to the Washington Post, Elon Musk plans to lay off about 50% of the group’s 7,500 employees. As soon as he took power, he dissolved the board of directors and fired the CEO and other senior officials. Soon after the layoff announcement, Twitter employees took to social media to announce their layoffs, sometimes using the hashtags #LoveWhereYouWork and #OneTeam.
“Has it already started? Happy layoff day!Rumman Chowdhury, who poses on LinkedIn as the director of ethics for artificial learning on Twitter, accompanied his post with a screenshot showing that he had been denied access to his professional email address on Thursday evening. “All my thoughts, respect, energy and love to the people spread around the world today. Together, we’ve created the most amazing app on the planetFor his part, Damien Viel, director general of Twitter France, wrote on Friday. On Thursday night, five recently fired Twitter employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for not receiving the 60-day notice period required by US law for layoffs.
“Everything”:
To fund his $44 billion takeover, the tempestuous billionaire saddled a company whose financial health was already fragile as it posted a significant deficit in the first two quarters of the year. Thus, Elon Musk signed loans of 13 billion dollars, which should be repaid by Twitter, not the head of Tesla. He also sold about $15.5 billion of his stake in the electric car maker in two rounds, in April and August, and issued $12.5 billion worth of loans against his Tesla stock.
On Friday, Elon Musk blamed Twitter’s revenue decline on “a group of activists putting pressure on advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we’ve done our best to appease the activists;“. “It is complete garbage. They are trying to destroy free speech in America” added the bubbly fifties. Elon Musk should really address the concerns of many advertisers who wonder about the risks of loosening content moderation and giving more space to hate or violent speech.
Several groups have already decided to stop advertising spending on Twitter, including US agribusiness giant General Mills, US carmaker General Motors and its German rival Volkswagen. One of Mr. Musk’s key ideas since his acquisition has been the establishment of an $8-a-month subscription that would allow users to verify their account, be less exposed to ads, and enjoy various benefits. However, this project has generated a lot of criticism and caution, especially among users who already have a verified account.
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.