Mehul Reuben DasNov 07, 2022 09:47:01 IST
Things are not looking good for Twitter, at least as far as its workforce is concerned. Just days after Elon Musk acquired the microblogging site for a record $44 billion, the tech company fired about 50 per cent of its workforce all around the world. Now, reports have emerged which say that the interim management at Twitter has asked some of its fired employees to return.
Elon Musk and his team who are running Twitter laid off about 3700 employees from its global workforce in a rather controversial and unceremonious manner. While India’s Twitter team was cut short from over 250 people to just under 10, reports have surfaced that suggest the team based out of Ireland, had faced a similarly rough trimming.
While most Twitter employees were fired over an email, many people found out that they were terminated, after their work-issued laptops were remotely wiped and their access to company-wide systems, like email and Slack were revoked.
Mere days after cutting its workforce in half, Twitter is asking some employees to return, according to Bloomberg. Citing two sources within the company, the outlet reports management at Twitter has come to the realization it either let some workers off by accident or without realizing their experience was essential to building the features Elon Musk wants to bring to the platform.
The management at Twitter realised that among the people who were fired, there were some key people with tons of experience who would be crucial to develop the iOS and Android features that Musk wants to implement.
“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” Musk tweeted on Friday before the sackings began.
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
As of now, about 3700, half of Twitter’s previous workforce are still with the company. This figure does not include the number of people who were “mistakenly” fired and have been asked to return.
The remaining employees are being pushed to move quickly in shipping new features in some harsh deadlines.
In other news, Twitter rolled out their new Twitter Blue subscription plan, which offers the Twitter Blue Tick verification check mark for any user who pays $8 a month, over the weekend. However, just a day later, Musk announced that the platform has decided to delay changes to the check marks until after Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US, after several prominent users raised concerns that the plan could be misused to influence the elections.