More on rumors of looming job cuts at Twitter: Bloomberg is reporting that new owner Elon Musk will slash headcount by 50% to cut costs, citing people familiar with the matter. Its report suggests staff will begin being told Friday.
Additionally, Bloomberg says Musk will reverse Twitter’s current ‘work from anywhere’ policy — and intends to require staff to work from offices, with the possibility that some exceptions could be made.
The social media firm has around 7,500 employees in total globally — so halving headcount would mean cutting around 3,750 jobs.
While issuing a blanket mandate to return to office working could be a strategy for Musk to accelerate the staff purge by encouraging employees to leave voluntarily if they don’t like the change of terms.
We reached out to Twitter for comment on Bloomberg’s report but at the time of writing it had not responded.
A number of staff already left Twitter prior to the Musk takeover, electing to leave pre-emptively rather than stay for the inevitable drama/workplace hell.
Musk also fired a clutch of top execs immediately on taking over the company, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde — reportedly bringing in a coterie of advisors and Tesla staff to help him decide on how to restructure Twitter.
The billionaire has not yet made it clear how he will reshape the company — but he is under pressure to shrink costs given the amount of debt he’s had to take on by taking over Twitter.
In recent days, he has also been lashing out at Twitter’s core customers (advertisers), following reports that some are going cold on the platform over brand safety concerns attached to his particular brand of ‘free speech’ — a self-defeating dynamic that looks set to increase Musk’s financial bind.
Bloomberg’s report of looming job cuts of 50% follows a Washington Post article at the end of last month that suggested Musk planned to cut 25% of the workforce.
Earlier last month the Post had also reported that Musk planned to axe 75% of Twitter staff — a report Musk denied, according to a Bloomberg report citing ‘people familiar with the matter’.
While Musk does not appear to have made public remarks on any of these headcount downsizing rumors he did tweet late last month to deny a New York Times report that had suggested layoffs at Twitter would take place before November 1 in order to avoid schedule stock grant payouts — dubbing that report “false”.
In the small hours this morning, Musk was instead tweeting cryptically about Twitter’s potential for “improvement”.
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