Labor

Report: Twitter Lays Off 200 More Employees

Published FEB 28 2023

Story

Image credit: verge

The Facts

Twitter on Saturday reportedly laid off roughly 200 employees – about 10% of its remaining workforce – in CEO Elon Musk's continued attempt to cut costs. Those laid off included product managers, data scientists and engineers, and some from the monetization infrastructure team.
nytimes
Many employees reportedly learned they’d lost their jobs when they were unable to log in to company emails and laptops.
Business Insider
Musk, who’s also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has cut Twitter’s staff from 7.5k to 1.8k since taking over the company in October. He has said he will pass on his CEO duties once the company is on stable ground.
Forbes
As employees were learning about their firings on Sunday, Musk tweeted: "Hope you have a good Sunday. First day of the rest of your life."
BBC News
Among those laid off was Esther Crawford, an executive in charge of the Twitter Blue subscription service who famously slept on her office floor after Musk's $44B purchase of the platform.
BBC News
Musk on Monday reportedly sent a memo to his remaining employees, informing them they would be receiving "very significant" performance-based stock awards next month.
Verge

Sources Split

LEFT

CENTER

RIGHT

ESTAB
CRIT

CENTER

PRO
ESTAB

The Spin

Narrative A

Things keep going from bad to worse for Twitter under Musk, as even his most loyal executives aren’t immune to his massive cuts. Since he overpaid for Twitter and loaded it up with debt, advertising revenues have continued to drop, and there has been nothing but chaos online and in Twitter’s offices. Don’t expect things to change while Musk remains in charge.

Vice

Narrative B

Musk has been transparent about needing to cut costs and make the platform profitable. He’s shrewdly making the necessary reductions in the workforce, and he’s made sure those who remain are dedicated to working extra hard for the company’s success.

Daily Mail