Elon Musk Plans More Layoffs Today After Sacking 50% Staff: Report

The latest firing will target the social media platform’s sales and partnership departments after it witnessed mass resignations from engineers last week

Employee departures in Twitter multiplied at Twitter on November 17, 2022, after an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk, who demanded staff choose between being "extremely hardcore" and working long hours, or losing their jobs.

Source : AFP

New Delhi: Billionaire Elon Musk is planning to fire more Twitter employees on Monday targeting the social media platform’s sales and partnership departments after it witnessed mass resignations from engineers last week.

Those who left included employees in technical roles compared to those in sales, partnerships, and similar roles, according to the sources cited by Bloomberg. On Friday, Musk directed leaders in those organisations to look for firing more employees.

Robin Wheeler, who has been heading marketing and sales declined to consider firing employees, as per the source. Similarly, Maggie Suniewick, who ran partnerships also apparently opposed the move. Both ended up losing their jobs as a result, the report stated.

Wheeler, who had made up her mind to resign earlier this month was convinced to stay by employees. She has helped Musk communicate with advertisers who are wary of Twitter’s changing policies and vision. Several major brands have said they are pausing spending on Twitter.

The development comes amid Musk’s ultimatum to employees where he asked them to either stay on and work long hours in a more “hardcore” version of Twitter, or leave with severance pay.

Since taking over Twitter in late October, Musk has taken some drastic cost-cutting steps, as he said that the platform was losing $4 million on a daily basis. This includes mass layoffs.

By the end of 2021, Twitter’s global workforce stood at around 7,500. However, in November this year, Twitter laid off nearly 50 per cent of its employees, reportedly numbering around 3,800.

Musk also dissolved Twitter’s board of directors, leading to the exit of CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Twitter’s head of legal, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde.

Musk reportedly went on to fire at least 20 employees who criticised his actions either on Twitter or on the internal messaging platform Slack. Some employees were reportedly sacked just for retweeting posts slamming the new head.