It is expected that Twitter employees will find out via email on Friday whether they are still working for the online service after the acquisition of Elon Musk. The letter will be labeled “Your role on Twitter,” the company announced Thursday evening (local time) in a circular published by several US media outlets. According to media reports, with 3700 jobs, about every second job in the SMS service could be lost.
According to the email, employees who can stay on Twitter should receive the email on Friday at 9:00 a.m. US West Coast time (5:00 p.m. GMT) at their company address. Anyone who loses their job will receive information about the next steps on their private e-mail address. It was understood on Twitter to be a “challenging experience,” according to the circular email, which began with the salutation “Team” and was signed only with “Twitter.”
Offices closed for fear of protest
The Twitter offices will remain closed on Friday and all admission tickets will be deactivated, it said. “If you are in the office or on your way to an office, please go home.” The measure is intended to ensure the security of employees, Twitter systems and user data. The move should therefore be a precautionary measure to rule out protests by layoffs. That would not be unprecedented: in November 2017, on his last working day, a support employee deactivated the Twitter account of then US President Donald Trump. It took about ten minutes for the account to be back online.
According to reports from the Washington Post and the New York Times, about half of Twitter’s 7,500 employees will lose their jobs. “In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we will begin the difficult process of global downsizing,” the email read. This will “meet a large number of people who have made valuable contributions to Twitter”, but is “unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s future success”.
For Twitter employees, the circular was the first official announcement since Musk completed the Twitter purchase last Thursday. A general meeting with Musk was originally announced for Friday. However, this was canceled — as well as a later date for it, it said, citing employees. The new Twitter boss had previously announced significant savings. Musk took over Twitter at the end of October for about 44 billion euros after months of bickering and immediately fired several top managers.
Communication only via tweet
Employees most likely learned about Musk’s ideas for the future of the service through the tech billionaire’s tweets. The Washington Post wrote that his announced plans for new features in the paid subscription to Twitter Blue came as a surprise to most employees in the responsible department. “We all work for Donald Trump’s White House,” she quoted an employee as saying. He alluded to the fact that Trump made announcements on Twitter, sometimes without consulting officials, and that even some of his ministers learned of their resignation through tweets from the US president.
Twitter was recently in the red. Musk also took out loans of about $13 billion for the acquisition deal — and media reports say it takes more money to maintain them than the Twitter business generates in free money. Musk had set Twitter’s financial goal of increasing annual revenue from $5 billion last year to more than $26 billion by 2028.
Big companies freeze advertising budgets
Meanwhile, the company is coming under financial pressure following its acquisition by Musk: Several international companies, including food giant General Mills and automaker Volkswagen, froze their ad budgets on Twitter on Thursday. US automaker General Motors had already stopped advertising on Twitter last week as a result of its acquisition by Musk.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
