Elon Musk has started mass layoffs at Twitter in a bid to cut down costs. The company sent emails to employees who are being fired on Friday. A new report in Yahoo! Finance mentioned that billionaire Musk did not put his name on the layoff memo to the staff.
The internal emails sent to the employees were signed "Thank you, Twitter."
The email sent on Friday said that the move is being made to take Twitter on a healthy path. "We will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home." It also said that everyone will receive individual mail.
Key Twitter teams including Human Rights, Accessibility, Al Ethics, and Curation are now shut down. In India, most people are being fired across engineering, sales, marketing, and communication teams.
Regarding the decision, Musk tweeted: "Regarding Twitter's reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required."
The mail sent to sacked employees read: "Today is your last working day at the company, however, you will remain employed by Twitter and will receive compensation and benefits through your separation date of 2 February 2023. During this time, you will be on a Non-working notice period and your access to Twitter systems will be deactivated. Within a week, you will receive details of your severance offer, and financial resources extending beyond your non-working notice period."
Employees who were not fired also received a separate email that read: "We are sending this email to confirm that your employment is not impacted by today's workforce reduction." The company has closed its office until Monday. "Birdhouse is temporarily offline. Our office buildings are temporarily closed. All badge access is temporarily suspended," read the email.
Many have criticised the move saying it is a poor decision. One user also tweeted: "This is just another example of how Elon Musk is making poor decisions for his company. Twitter is losing money hand over fist, and he's only making things worse by cutting staff."