Report: Twitter Lays Off 200 More Employees

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.¹
• Many employees reportedly learned they’d lost their jobs when they were unable to log in to company emails and laptops.²
• 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.³
• 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.'⁴
• 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.⁴
• 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.⁵

Sources: ¹New York Times, ²Business Insider, ³Forbes, ⁴BBC News and ⁵Verge.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Vice. 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.
• Narrative B, as provided by Daily Mail. 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.

Predictions