Musk Says Twitter Mass Layoffs Were “No Choice”

• Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has said that he had “no choice” but to fire about half of the people who worked for the online platform.
• Yoel Roth, the head of safety and integrity at the social media giant Twitter, said that 50% of the people who worked there were fired on Friday.
• Musk said in a Tweet, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no other choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
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Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, has said that he had “no choice” but to fire about half of the people who worked for the online platform. Yoel Roth, the head of safety and integrity at the social media giant Twitter, said that 50% of the people who worked there were fired on Friday.

Musk said in a Tweet, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no other choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.” Musk, the richest person in the world, said that “Twitter’s strong commitment to content moderation remains exactly the same.” Friday, Twitter Inc. temporarily shut down its offices and told its workers that they would find out by email later in the day if they would be fired.

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Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.

Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022

Twitter had 7,500 workers before Musk’s takeover, meaning around 3,700 jobs were lost.

The billionaire founder of SpaceX, Tesla and PayPal is seeking to slash costs at the social platform he acquired just a week ago for $44 billion (€44.9 billion). Musk defended the layoffs by tweeting that all leaving staff received “3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally necessary”.

On Friday, NGOs and activists raised worries about content control after widespread layoffs. Twitter personnel said that communications, content curation, human rights, machine learning ethics, and product and technical departments were decimated.

Twitter tweeted Friday evening that “hateful speech” had “declined” below average levels this week. Roth tweeted later that most of Twitter’s 2,000 “first line” content moderators were unaffected.

He stated the “reduction in force” impacted 15% of Twitter’s trust and safety organisation compared to a 50% companywide drop.

Roth said disinformation was a “high focus” during the midterm elections. Joe Biden’s presidency will be tested Tuesday when most Americans vote.

“To assist safeguard the safety of each employee as well as Twitter infrastructure and customer data,” Twitter shuttered its offices on Friday and halted badge access. Some workers stated that their IT access had been banned and worried they had been laid off.

“I’m jobless. Remotely logged out of work laptop and Slack “tweeted former Twitter senior community manager @SBkcrn.

@RachelBonn tweeted: “Twitter officially ended last Thursday in San Francisco. 9-month-old and 8-month pregnant. Lost laptop access.” Twitter workers have been screaming on #OneTeam over the layoffs.

On Thursday, Twitter workers filed a class action complaint against the corporation for mass layoffs without 60-day notice, violating federal and California law.  The complaint also requested that the San Francisco federal court prohibit Twitter from seeking laid-off workers to sign agreements without telling them of the case.

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