Days after Elon Musk completed the USD 44 billion acquisition of Twitter, he has planned to begin laying off employees from the microblogging site, reported news agency PTI citing a report by the New York Times. Musk “planned to begin laying off workers” at Twitter as soon as on Saturday, the NYT report stated.
According to the report citing people with knowledge of the situation, some managers were being asked to “draw up lists of employees to cut.”
Ahead of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, reports were circulating that he will cut headcount, with some reports saying 75 per cent of the workforce at the company could be laid off.
“Musk, who completed a USD 44-billion deal to buy Twitter on Thursday, has ordered the cuts across the company, with some teams to be trimmed more than others,” the NYT report said, adding that the “scale of the layoffs could not be determined” at the company, which has around 7,500 employees.
As per the NYT report, the layoffs at Twitter “would take place before” the November 1 date when “employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation.”
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A day after he completed the USD 44 billion acquisition of the company, Musk had tweeted, “Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.”
The first ones to be ousted from the company after Musk’s acquisition was completed were CEO Parag Agrawal, legal executive Vijaya Gadde, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and General Counsel Sean Edgett.
Within hours of taking over the reigns at Twitter, the Tesla CEO posted a series of tweets.
“The bird is freed”, “Spoiler Alert. Let the good times roll”, “Living the Dream. Comedy is now legal on Twitter”.
Agrawal, 38, was appointed Twitter CEO in November last year after the social media site’s co-founder Jack Dorsey had stepped down.