Elon Musk wasted no time.
“We will begin the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” Twitter told its employees Thursday in an email seen by AFP, confirming the rumors that have been circulating since the Tesla boss bought the social network. A week ago.
The message says all employees will receive information by Friday morning when business opens in California, but does not specify how many people will be affected.
According to the
Washington Post
, the new leader plans to lay off about 50% of the approximately 7,500 employees.
"We recognize that a number of individuals who have made notable contributions to Twitter will be affected, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success in the future," the company told employees.
A billion dollars of interest a year to be paid on the debt
The boss of Tesla and SpaceX bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars and took control last Thursday, after six months of a very eventful acquisition.
He immediately disbanded the board of directors, fired the chief executive and other senior officials, and launched major projects with goals to be accomplished quickly.
Several engineers reported having to sleep on site some nights.
The takeover was financed by $13 billion in debt.
Twitter, which has only made a profit twice, could quickly be crushed by interest of a billion dollars to be paid each year, especially in times of crisis among advertisers and a sluggish market.
Elon Musk is therefore seeking to drastically reduce the payroll.
And to create new income, in particular by making the verification of accounts pay 8 dollars per month.
Elon Musk, who first renamed himself “Chief Twit” (“twit” meaning “idiot” in English), then “Twitter hotline operator”, brought in Tesla developers on Friday to go through reviews the work of Twitter employees.
Many engineers had to print out the last lines of code they produced, according to an employee who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Lists comparing computer scientists with each other, mainly on the basis of production volume, have also been established, according to another employee.
“A farce and a disgrace”
“The ongoing dismissal process is a farce and a disgrace.
Tesla henchmen make decisions about people they know nothing about except the number of lines of code produced.
This is complete nonsense,” Taylor Leese, the director of an engineering team who said he was fired, tweeted on Sunday.
On Thursday, more and more employees of the tweeting network were expressing their dismay or making humor.
“The mass layoffs haven't happened yet and yet everyone on Twitter has already lost their jobs.
The work that was outlined in their contract, the work they loved, the work with all the co-workers they came to know and appreciate,” said Eli Schutze, a London-based Twitter IT specialist, according to his profile.
"It's the start of a blank slate no matter which side you fall on," she added.
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