According to a report from Bloomberg, Elon Musk plans to fire 3,700 Twitter employees — or about half the social media company’s overall workforce — starting Friday, November 4.
Musk was originally expected to slash Twitter’s workforce by 75% after taking over. Later reports indicated he would start by laying off 25% of workers, but it now looks like half of Twitter will be getting the axe.
The information comes from sources familiar with the matter, who added that Musk plans to repeal Twitter’s existing remote work policy as well. Employees who didn’t make the cut for Musk-led Twitter will be notified starting Friday, and the staff that remains will be asked to report to offices (although some exceptions could likely be made, sources said).
It’s only been a week since Musk closed his long-teetering $44 billion USD acquisition of Twitter and took over the company. In the days since, the eccentric entrepreneur has fired Parag Agrawal (and other bigwigs) to become CEO, laid off the company’s entire board to become its sole director, and sent Tesla engineers to audit Twitter’s code.
He has even put rush orders on major changes and new features for Twitter, including an $8 verification subscription and “Paywalled Video” for creators.
Musk has promised to double Twitter’s revenue within three years. Mass job cuts will not only go a long way in fixing what he sees as the biggest problem at the company right now but will also help cut spending and boost revenue.
Twitter has also decided to cancel its Chirp developer conference amid the ownership change, the company announced on its platform on Wednesday. That said, the social media giant also noted it is working to “build some things that we’re excited to share with you soon.”
We’re currently hard at work to make Twitter better for everyone, including developers! We’ve decided to cancel the #Chirp developer conference while we build some things that we’re excited to share with you soon.
— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) November 2, 2022
The Chirp conference, originally scheduled for November 16 in San Francisco, would have made a comeback after more than 10 years. However, with everything going on at Twitter and Musk’s whirlwind changes, it is no surprise that the company decided to scrap it for now.
