A slew of Twitter contract employees found they had been abruptly laid off over the weekend after dropping entry to Slack and different work methods, in keeping with inside communications full-time Twitter staff shared with CNBC.
It is estimated that 4,400 of its 5,500 contract employees had been laid off, according to tech news publication Platformer, which first reported the cuts. CNBC has not confirmed the whole quantity.
Some of Twitter’s contract employees had been based mostly overseas in India, amongst different locations. The full-time staff, who requested to stay nameless as a result of they weren’t approved to talk on Twitter’s behalf, stated they’d no inside discover earlier than contractors they collaborated with had been fired.
Twitter has laid off its whole inside communications staff, in keeping with staff. They made bitter jokes that the media that covers the corporate is now enjoying the position of inside communications.
Terminating the contractors’ work can be the newest downsizing at Twitter, which already laid off about half of its staff after it was acquired by Elon Musk on Oct. 28.
Musk and Twitter didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey apologized final week for rising the corporate “too quick” a day after the layoffs. Dorsey personally pushed for Musk to take over the corporate from him in a contentious leveraged buyout, and has transferred his personal shares to the brand new holding firm.
As of June 30, 2013, shortly earlier than Twitter went public, it had round 2,000 staff, in keeping with filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Late final 12 months, the corporate reported that it had grown to About 7,500 full-time staff.
Musk addressed the layoffs in a Nov. 4 tweet, which wrote: “Regarding downsizing Twitter, sadly there isn’t a different choice when the corporate is dropping over $4 million a day. All those that left had been provided 3 months of compensation, which is 50% greater than what’s legally required.”
Since taking workplace, Musk has knowledgeable remaining Twitter staff that he bought billions of {dollars} price of shares in Tesla, his electrical car enterprise, to “save” Twitter. It’s unclear whether or not he’ll proceed to promote Tesla shares to repay Twitter’s debt.
He additionally instructed Twitter staff that chapter isn’t out of the query amid an financial downturn and as advertisers have fled or stopped spending on it throughout its tough takeover.