Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Jun 05, 2025

Twitter mass layoffs begin as Musk slashes costs

Twitter mass layoffs begin as Musk slashes costs

Thousands of Twitter employees were ordered to stay home on Friday to await a bracing round of layoffs that could see half of the payroll axed as new owner Elon Musk launches his major overhaul of the company.

A week after the billionaire took over the company promising sweeping changes, Twitter workers around the world have been checking two email addresses to find out if they still have a job, according to an internal memo sent to employees and seen by Bloomberg.

An email to their work account means they’ve been retained. A letter in their personal inbox means they’ve been fired.

Twitter promised to notify workers by 9am San Francisco time on Friday, and has temporarily closed offices and suspended badge access “to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data,” the memo said

The cull is part of Musk's push to find ways to pay for the mammoth $44-billion deal for which he took on billions of dollars in debt and sold $15.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla, his electric car company.

Musk, the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, has been scrambling to find new ways for Twitter to make money after his mammoth buyout, including charging users $8 a month for verified accounts.

This would help overcome the potential loss of advertisers, Twitter’s main source of revenue, with many of the world’s top brands putting their ad buys on hold, spooked by Musk’s well-known disdain for content moderation.

To mitigate concerns, Musk has vowed that the site would not become a "free-for-all hellscape” though this was quickly followed by a Musk retweet that relayed a conspiracy theory about the assault on the husband of the US House Speaker.

Though extremely influential with opinion-makers and celebrities, the California company has long struggled to generate profit and has failed to keep pace with Meta-owned Facebook and TikTok in gaining new users.

"In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce," the unsigned email said.

The email did not give a number but the Washington Post and New York Times reported that about half of Twitter's 7,500 employees — mostly based in San Francisco — will be let go.


Saying goodbye

Some workers had already begun to learn their fates and took to Twitter to say goodbye to colleagues.

"Spoiler Alert: I do not have a job," tweeted ex-employee Blake Herzinger as others reported losing access to company servers and email accounts.

Twitter employees have been bracing for this kind of bad news since Musk completed his acquisition late last week and quickly set about dissolving its board and firing its chief executive and top managers.

Late on Thursday, a group of five Twitter employees who had already been fired filed a class action complaint against the company on the grounds that they had not been given the required 60-day notice period as required by law.

The lawsuit references the US Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification  Act, which provides workers a right to advance notice in cases of mass layoffs or plant closings.

The speed of the changes is having repercussions. Twitter has already been sued for not giving proper notice of the plan to eliminate about 3,700 jobs. 

Some advertisers are also wary of Musk’s plans to reexamine Twitter’s content moderation policy. Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, joined Pfizer and General Mills in temporarily pausing advertising on the platform.

“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk said in a tweet. “Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”


Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Global News Roundup: From Ukraine's strategic military strikes and Russia's demands and Tensions Escalate in Ukraine, to serious legal issues faced by Britons in Bali and Trump's media criticism, the latest developments highlight a turbulent landscape
Majority of French Voters View Macron's Presidency as a Failure
Hungary Partners with China to Boost Electric Vehicle Production
‘Vibe Coding’ Emerges as the New DIY Trend
AI Pioneer Yoshua Bengio Warns Models Can Deceive Users
Big Four Firms Rush to Create AI Auditing Systems
Musk’s xAI Pursues $113 Billion Valuation in New Share Sale
Walmart Increases Revenue Despite Shrinking Workforce
Hims & Hers Plans UK and EU Launch of Replica Obesity Drugs
Toyota to Acquire Supplier in $33 Billion Buyout
U.S. Reduces Military Presence in Syria
Trump Demands Iran End All Uranium Enrichment in Nuclear Talks
China Accuses US of Violating Trade Truce
Panama Port Owner Balances US-China Pressures
France Implements Nationwide Outdoor Smoking Ban to Protect Children
German Chancellor Merz Keeps Putin Guessing on Missile Strategy
Mandelson Criticizes UK's 'Fetish' for Abandoning EU Regulations
British Fishing Boat Owner Fined €30,000 by French Authorities
Dutch government falls as far-right leader Wilders quits coalition
Harvard Urges US to Unfreeze Funds for Public Health Research
Businessman Mauled by Lion at Luxury Namibian Lodge
Researchers Consider New Destinations Beyond the U.S.
53-Year-Old Doctor Claims Biological Age of 23
Trump Struggles to Secure Trade Deals With China and Europe
Russia to Return 6,000 Corpses Under Ukraine Prisoner Swap Deal
Microsoft Lays Off Hundreds More Amid Restructuring
Harvey Weinstein’s Publicist Embraces Notoriety
Macron and Meloni Seek Unity Despite Tensions
Trump Administration Accused of Obstructing Deportation Cases
Newark Mayor Sues Over Arrest at Immigration Facility
Center-Left Candidate Projected to Win South Korean Presidency
Trump’s Tariffs Predicted to Stall Global Economic Growth
South Korea’s President-Elect Expected to Take Softer Line on Trump and North Korea
Trump’s China Strategy Remains a Geopolitical Puzzle
Ukraine Executes Long-Range Drone Strikes on Russian Airbases
Conservative Karol Nawrocki wins Poland’s presidential election
Study Identifies Potential Radicalization Risk Among Over One Million Muslims in Germany
Good news: Annalena Baerbock Elected President of the UN General Assembly
Apple Appeals EU Law Over User Data Sharing Requirements
South Africa: "First Black Bank" Collapses after Being Looted by Owners
Poland will now withdraw from the EU migration pact after pro-Trump nationalist wins Election
"That's Disgusting, Don’t Say It Again": The Trump Joke That Made the President Boil
Trump Cancels NASA Nominee Over Democratic Donations
Paris Saint-Germain's Greatest Triumph Is Football’s Lowest Point
OnlyFans for Sale: From Lockdown Lifeline to Eight-Billion-Dollar Empire
Mayor’s Security Officer Implicated | Shocking New Details Emerge in NYC Kidnapping Case
Hegseth Warns of Potential Chinese Military Action Against Taiwan
OPEC+ Agrees to Increase Oil Output for Third Consecutive Month
Jamie Dimon Warns U.S. Bond Market Faces Pressure from Rising Debt
Turkey Detains Istanbul Officials Amid Anti-Corruption Crackdown
×