A week after being bought by Elon Musk, Twitter has undertaken to lay off half of its workforce, while launching major projects and battling against users, advertisers and associations worried about the transformation of the influential social network.
“About 50% of the staff will be affected” by the current layoffs within Twitter, according to a document sent to employees of the social network who were thanked on Friday and consulted by AFP.
The Californian company, which had nearly 7,500 employees at the end of October, notified thousands of people by email and announced the temporary closure of its offices.
“As announced earlier today, Twitter is reducing its workforce to help improve the health of the business. These decisions are never easy and it is with regret that we write to let you know that your Twitter post is affected. Today is your last day of work, ”says one of these messages, consulted by AFP.
The marketing and design departments seem particularly affected, according to an employee who wished to remain anonymous.
Thursday evening, Twitter wrote to all its employees to warn them of the upcoming layoffs, telling them that the offices would be “temporarily closed” and access “suspended”, in order to “ensure the security” of employees and company data. ‘company.
Take over
As of last Thursday, when Elon Musk took control of the company, the billionaire had dissolved the board of directors, fired the executives, taken the post of general manager and took the company off the stock exchange.
Shortly after the announcement of the layoffs, employees of the social network spoke there to announce the abolition of their position and their solidarity.
“All my thoughts, my respect, my energy and my love to the tweeps (Editor’s note: the nickname of Twitter employees) around the world today. We have built together the most incredible application on the planet, ”wrote for example Damien Viel, the general manager of Twitter France, on Friday.
During the night from Thursday to Friday, five employees who had just been dismissed also filed a class action lawsuit against the company on the grounds that they had not received the 60-day notice period required by American law in the event of layoffs. (WARN Act), according to the text of the complaint consulted by AFP.
“Real-Time Destruction”
Elon Musk, who first renamed himself “ Chief Twit » (« tweet Meaning “moron” in English), then “Twitter support service operator”, brought in Tesla developers on Friday to review the work of Twitter employees.
He also launched the overhaul of several products, including the paid subscription and the account authenticity verification system, and imposed a sustained pace. Several engineers slept in the office some nights.
The change in corporate culture is therefore confirmed – several executives resigned on their own this week and more than 700 people have already left this summer, of their own free will, according to an employee.
“We are witnessing the destruction in real time of one of the most powerful communication systems in the world. Elon Musk is an unpredictable and inconsistent billionaire: he represents a danger for this platform which he is not qualified to lead, ”reacted Nicole Gill, co-founder of Accountable Tech, one of the NGOs which called on advertisers to put pressure on the new boss.
Because the libertarian entrepreneur advocates a vision of freedom of expression that requires relaxing the moderation rules of the platform, thus risking opening the door to renewed abuse, according to his critics. Several companies have already decided to suspend ad spending on Twitter, including US food giant General Mills, as well as automakers General Motors and Volkswagen.
On Friday, Musk blamed Twitter’s revenue slump on “activists pressuring advertisers even though nothing has changed with content moderation”. ” It’s complete rubbish ! They are trying to destroy free speech in the United States,” the bubbly 50-year-old added. on his social network.