This time, it seems that Elon Musk stays true to his word and proceeds with his planned staff cuts at Twitter. In fact, most of his initial decisions as the new Tweet Chief has been to seemingly remove people, maybe he should also consider changing the platform’s name to ‘Splitter’ instead. While job cuts are a thing amidst economic crises, Twitter lost around 50% of its entire workforce as it strives to rationalize its business.

50/50 

The Twitter transition team informed staff that they would receive an email that would let them know whether or not they would still have a job. While there are no official numbers yet, internal managers have pegged the estimated staff loss to be at least 50%, with many long-serving, experienced ‘Tweeps’ bidding farewells via Tweet.

Musk had repeatedly highlighted the potential of job cuts during his presentations to potential investment partners, as he sought funding for his hefty acquisition. One of the documents he showed back in May noted that Musk would cut around a thousand staff on day one of his takeover, while his friend Jason Calacanis, who works with him on the transition, suggested that they cut roles on day one, with matching Tweet descriptions to signal the reductions.

More recent reports suggested that Musk would be looking to cut 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, reducing it to but a skeleton crew that’s just shy of 2,000 to keep things running. Musk later denied this figure, claiming that it didn’t come from him – though this recent announcement isn’t that far from the alleged claims. In Musk’s original investor presentations, he also noted that Twitter would eventually look to bring in more staff once again, adding back over 2,700 employees by 2025, in line with platform growth.

In light of this news, Twitter also canceled its upcoming Chirp developer conference, which was originally slated for November 16. It’s sad news for the app, especially for staff that had been busting their butts to impress their new owner, in hopes of saving their jobs. Clearly, there wasn’t much that they could have done, and for many, that meant that they would also be leaving roles they’ve been passionate about for years, as they’ve worked to steer Twitter on the right path.

It’s equally grim news for those who are left as they will now be under more pressure and are left with fewer resources to keep up with Musk’s reformation plans. On a related note, the Musk transition team has also called on the company to reduce infrastructure costs by $1 billion per year. Twitter will also be shutting down its newsletter offering, as well as shelving its experimental ‘Notes’ feature.

The Wrap

Musk has hinted that he’s open to facilitating long-form content options in the app, but obviously not in these formats, but perhaps the newsletter will return at some point as Twitter continues to revamp its subscription tools. It’s difficult to see how any of these will get done any time soon, given how many people have been kicked off the company. Musk, however, seems confident that Twitter will continue as normal, which can either mean that Twitter has been carrying a lot of dead weight or Musk is underestimating the scale of work required to keep things running. Guess we’ll all soon find out.

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Sources 

https://bit.ly/3NHjw1O