Irish staff await news as Musk plans to eliminate half of Twitter jobs
Musk is under pressure to find ways to slash costs of a business for which he says he overpaid.
Elon Musk plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs at Twitter or half of the social media company’s workforce, in a bid to drive down costs following his $44bn (€45.2bn) acquisition, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Twitter’s new owner aims to inform affected staffers on Friday, said the people, who requested anonymity as they are discussing non-public plans. Musk also intends to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy, asking remaining employees to report to offices - though some exceptions could be made.
Twitter has a significant presence in Ireland. Company accounts show the company employed less than 200 people prior to the pandemic but this increased to 243 in 2020 and today, Twitter employs an estimated 500 people at offices in Dublin.
Musk and a team of advisers have been weighing a range of scenarios for job cuts and other policy changes at San Francisco-based Twitter, the people said, adding that the terms of the headcount reduction could still change. In one scenario being considered, laid-off workers will be offered 60 days’ worth of severance pay, two of the people said.
After the layoffs were sorted, Twitter Chief Accounting Officer Robert Kaiden left the company, becoming one of the last pre-Musk C-suite executives to depart, according to people familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk is under pressure to find ways to slash costs of a business for which he says he overpaid. Twitter employees have been bracing for layoffs ever since Musk took over and immediately ousted much of the top executive team, including Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal, finance chief Ned Segal and senior legal staffers Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett.
Over the weekend, a few employees with director and vice president jobs were cut, people familiar with the matter said. Other leaders were asked to make lists of employees on their teams who could be cut, the people said.
Senior personnel on the product teams were asked to target a 50% reduction in headcount, a person familiar with the matter said this week. Engineers and director-level staff from Tesla, the carmaker also run by Musk, reviewed the lists, the person said. Layoff lists were drawn up and ranked based on individuals’ contributions to Twitter’s code during their time at the company, the people said. The assessment was made by both Tesla personnel and Twitter managers.
Concerns over steep personnel cuts started to swirl in the run-up to Musk’s buyout, when potential investors were told that he’d eliminate 75% of the workforce, which stood at about 7,500 at the end of 2021. Musk later denied that the cuts would be that deep.
In recent weeks, Musk started hinting at his staffing priorities, saying he wants to focus on the core product. “Software engineering, server operations & design will rule the roost,” he tweeted in early October.
Bloomberg
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