TheQuartering [11/4/2022]
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the email said.
“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
As the ominous missive arrived in inboxes, staffers began saying their farewells, sharing salute and heart emojis in their Slack channels, the New York Times said.
The email comes just days after Musk ordered his new employees to “work 24/7” to overhaul Twitter’s verification process, which he also plans to unveil by Friday.
Verified users will have to pay $8 per month to keep their blue check under his controversial “Twitter Blue” subscription plan.
Twitter staffers have set up support groups online and published layoff guides for those facing the ax.
“Honestly happy to be laid off, but the veil of Elon Musk is pierced,” one employee wrote, the BBC reported.
Others complained that they were abruptly booted from company platforms.
“This morning I lost access to my Twitter systems without warning, meaning I’m part of the 50% of workforce layoffs from a role I absolutely adored,” one staffer said.
Liss-Riordan sued Tesla over similar claims when the electric car maker laid off about 10% of its workforce — before the company won a ruling from a federal judge in Austin forcing the workers to pursue their claims in closed-door arbitration instead of in open court, according to Bloomberg.
In June, Musk described the Tesla lawsuit as “trivial” during a discussion with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait.
Speaking about the lawsuit against Twitter, Liss-Riordan told Bloomberg that the world’s richest man is “repeating the same playbook of what he did at Tesla.”
“We will now see if he is going to continue to thumb his nose at the laws of this country that protect employees,” Liss-Riordan said.