(Bloomberg) – Twitter Inc. has begun notifying employees affected by a sweeping round of job cuts, and some are told they will be paid in two months. As this was happening, the new owner, Elon Musk, said the business experienced a “severe drop” in revenue due to many advertisers pulling out.
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A week after the billionaire took over and promised sweeping changes, workers around the world checked two email addresses to see if they still had jobs, according to a memo. internals are sent to employees and shown by Bloomberg. An email to their work account means they’ve been kept. A letter in their personal inbox means they’ve been fired.
Twitter promises to notify workers by 9 a.m. San Francisco time on Friday and temporarily close offices and suspend badge access “to help ensure the safety of each employee and Twitter systems and customer data,” the memo said.
Musk plans to eliminate half of Twitter’s workforce to cut costs on the social media platform he acquired for $44 billion last month, people with knowledge of the matter said. this topic said. The company also had to find a way to deal with interest costs on a huge pile of debt.
“In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we’ll get through the tough process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” Twitter management said in an email reviewed by Bloomberg. “We recognize that this will affect a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but unfortunately this action is necessary to ensure the future success of the company.”
The speed of change is having consequences. Twitter was sued for not giving proper notice of its plans to eliminate about 3,700 jobs.
Some advertisers are also wary of Musk’s plans to re-examine Twitter’s content moderation policy. Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest car manufacturer, has joined with Pfizer Inc. and General Mills Inc. Pause advertising on this platform.
Bloomberg News will capture the news stream here.
Pregnant Workers Seeking Answers on Medical Benefits (12:33 p.m. NY)
Many workers wrote on the company’s Slack channels and in public Twitter posts to say goodbye. They used blue heart emojis and greetings to thank their colleagues. But they lack official information on their next steps. According to people familiar with the matter, at least two pregnant employees were fired with no information about their future medical benefits. Even employees who survived the cuts were reeling from the way the process played out.
Read more here.
Read memo sent to employees (12:11 p.m. NY)
Team,
In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we’ll go through the tough process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will affect some individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but unfortunately this action is necessary to ensure the future success of the company.
Read the rest here.
Twitter has a ‘strong drop in revenue,’ Musk says (10:33 a.m. NY)
“Twitter has experienced a massive drop in revenue due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, although nothing has changed with content moderation and we have done everything we can to appease activists. ,” Musk said in a tweet. “Extremely messy! They are trying to destroy freedom of speech in America.”
Some employees will get severance pay for two months, Lawyer says (10:26 a.m.)
“It looks like the employees are getting their notice and at least some will be paid until January 4th,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the class action lawsuit in California on Thursday. . “I am glad that Elon Musk has learned something from the lawsuit we brought against him at Tesla and is working to comply with the WARN Act. We pre-filed this case to make sure that recidivism doesn’t happen.”
Twitter employees join unions before job cuts (12pm London)
Twitter employees in the UK have joined unions in an effort to better protect their employment rights during the time of mass job cuts announced by the new owner of the social media platform Elon Musk Father.
Mike Clancy, General Secretary of Prospect, a UK-based union, said: “Twitter has been treating its people badly over the past week. Clancy has called on the UK government to ensure that Twitter does not become a “digital P&O”, referring to the ferry company that cut 800 jobs in March.
“We are supporting our members at Twitter and will work with them to protect them and their livelihoods,” he added.
British labor group United Tech and Allied worker also condemned the treatment of staff and encouraged workers to get involved on Twitter.
The UK’s Advising, Mediation and Arbitration Service says businesses are often required to consult about overcapacity and notify the government’s Standby Payments Service. An ACAS spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the situation.
Ex-Costolo CEO Creates Twitter Alumni Network (11:30am London)
Former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, who left the company in 2015, said his latest company has put together a resource for former Twitter employees who want to connect and “find out what’s next.” “.
Costolo is the founder of 01 Advisors, a consulting and venture capital firm for tech startups in San Francisco.
Staff notified in Dublin (11am in London)
Twitter’s Dublin office, which employs about 500 people, has already begun notifying some employees via email, according to Irish news site RTE.
Some employees in the UK have also started sharing on Twitter that they have been locked out of their work system.
A representative for Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Volkswagen asks brands to pause spending (8:30am in London)
Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, recommends that all of its brands suspend paid practices on Twitter until further notice, according to a statement emailed Friday.
Some advertisers have slowed down placing ads on the platform until they have a better understanding of Musk’s plans. Musk has said he wants to remove some content censorship, leading to fears that hate speech, misinformation and other potentially harmful material will flourish even more freely. General Mills said it is pausing advertising on Twitter, along with General Motors Co. reconsider their presence on the platform.
Twitter sues for mass layoffs (10:43 p.m. SF)
Twitter has been sued for its plans to eliminate Musk’s work at the social media platform, which workers say the company is doing without enough notice violates federal and California laws. A class action lawsuit was filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court.
Employees begin to lose email access (9:13 p.m. SF)
The company began cutting off employees’ access to email and Slack on Thursday night. Some employees who no longer have work tools suspect that their jobs have been cut, although they have yet to receive official confirmation.
Job cuts start
All told, Musk wants to cut about 3,700 jobs at San Francisco-based Twitter, people with knowledge of the matter said this week. The entrepreneur began making suggestions about his HR priorities before the deal closed, saying he wanted to focus on the core product. “Software engineering, server operations and design will dominate the period,” he tweeted in early October.
Security officers at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters have been preparing to lay off employees, while an internal directory used to look up colleagues was shut down Thursday afternoon, who had employees. understanding of the matter said. The staff has been working for weeks. In recent days, they have raced to connect via LinkedIn and other non-Twitter avenues, giving each other advice on how to combat job loss, the people said. Former Twitter engineers are also using social media to respond to former “Tweeps” looking for work elsewhere.
Musk is also in discussions with advisors to find new ways to monetize the blogging platform, including charging for verification, which can help identify real users with fake accounts. He’s also considering resurrecting a long-defunct short-video tool called Vine, a way to compete with popular video-sharing apps like TikTok. Another product under consideration, the New York Times reported, is paid direct messaging, which allows ratings and files to send private messages to famous users.
Read more: Musk restores Twitter content moderation tools ahead of US election
– With support from Kurt Wagner, Olivia Solon, Monica Raymunt, Morwenna Coniam and Thomas Seal.
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