In a first email to Twitter employees, Elon Musk, the new owner of the messaging network, announced a mass layoff on Thursday. The offices are temporarily closed, until it is clear who can stay and who can’t. The first employees have already been disconnected from the company systems, according to reports from the Washington Post.
Friday afternoon (9 a.m. US time) all 7,500 employees will receive an email with the subject ‘Your Role at Twitter‘ – your role at Twitter – and let them know if they’re keeping their jobs. Musk is expected to lay off half of its staff. “Don’t forget to check your spam box,” is the advice.
Twitter is a messaging network where approximately 230 million users discuss current affairs and news. It is a much smaller network than Facebook, but it is influential, especially in the media world.
Also read: Twitter king Elon Musk is powerful but vulnerable
Elon Musk – the richest person on Earth is the CEO of Tesla and has a Twitter account with 112 million followers – bought Twitter for $44 billion. Musk thinks Twitter’s moderation policy is too strict – and many Republican Americans with him. Musk also has plans to reduce the amount of spam and bots and wants a large group of users to pay for Twitter.
However, after a hostile bid, Musk backed out and wanted to get out of the deal. The economic tide for social media has now deteriorated – the advertising market is shrinking and other social media companies are also cutting back. Musk is still tied to Twitter under threat of lawsuit — he took ownership last week.
Musk cuts costs to make loss-making Twitter profitable. Mass layoff is the fastest method. It is not clear what consequences this will have for, for example, Twitter’s moderation policy – two thousand people work there to prevent the spread of fake news and hate speech. Musk thinks that smart software and an external supervisory board can partly take over that task.