Musk to cut half of Twitter’s workforce on Friday: report

Twitter layoffs are coming. While there’s been some debate about how many Twitter employees stand to lose their jobs — some reports went as high as 75 percent — it looks like about half the company’s employees could get let go.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Twitter’s new CEO and dude who desperately wants you to think he’s cool, Elon Musk, plans to cut 3,700 Twitter jobs. Currently, the Twitter workforce stands at roughly 7,500 people. The information comes from people with knowledge of the matter, who said Musk plans to inform affected staffers on Friday. Moreover, Musk plans to reverse the company’s work-from-anywhere policy and force employees to return to the office, although there may be some exceptions.

Musk and a team of advisors reportedly considered a variety of layoff scenarios and policy changes at Twitter, and the people who spoke to Bloomberg noted plans could still change. One scenario reportedly included offering laid-off workers 60 days’ worth of severance pay.

Once the layoffs were sorted, Twitter’s chief accounting officer, Robert Kaiden, left the company. Kaiden marks one of the last pre-Musk executives to depart the company, according to Bloomberg.

Layoffs were an expected part of Musk’s Twitter takeover. Musk made it clear from the start that he intended to fire people, with the only real question being how many people would lose their jobs. Since taking over, Twitter staff have reportedly worked long hours and over the weekend on various projects for Musk, under threat of being fired if they missed the deadline.

Meanwhile, leaders were tasked with drawing up lists of employees who could be cut, and senior personnel were told to target a 50 percent reduction in headcount, Bloomberg reported. Musk reportedly had engineers and director-level staff from Tesla review the lists, which were drawn up and ranked based on individuals’ contributions to Twitter’s code. Musk previously tweeted about focusing on Twitter’s core product, noting that “Software engineering, server operations & design will rule the roost.”

All these cuts come as Twitter contends with massive debt from the Musk acquisition. The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk’s purchase saddled Twitter with $13 billion USD (about $17.95 billion CAD) in debt, with interest payments expected to total $1 billion USD (roughly $1.4 billion CAD) annually. That debt appears to be driving much of Musk’s decision-making as he rushes to make cuts and introduce changes to squeeze a profit from Twitter. Along with cutting staff, plans include increasing the cost of Twitter Blue to $8/mo, adding verification to Blue, and introducing a paywalled video feature.

For the latest on the Musk x Twitter news, check out MobileSyrup’s coverage here.

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Source: Bloomberg