Back and forth under Musk
Now Twitter wants to bring employees back
11/07/2022, 8:20 am
The new Twitter owner Musk has fired half of the 7,500 employees by email. But the clear cut is apparently too radical. Now the company is trying to get important employees back – with revealing reasons.
According to a media report, Twitter is asking some of the employees who were made redundant on Friday to return. The US company is currently in contact with dozens of former employees in order to bring them back, reports Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. Some ex-employees who were supposed to come back were wrongly fired. Others were fired before management realized that their work and experience could be necessary for the platform’s future plans. Twitter has not yet commented on this.
The days following Musk’s takeover have been turbulent.
(Photo: REUTERS)
The social network only laid off half of the 7,500 employees on Friday. US workers have already filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter. They accuse the company of failing to comply with the 60-day period required for mass redundancies. It violates California and federal law. The layoffs went back to the new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. Ever since Musk delisted and privately owned Twitter a week ago on Friday, it doesn’t appear to have had a governance structure typical of larger companies. Immediately after taking over, he fired top management, dissolved the board of directors and appointed himself “sole director”.
Advertisers drop out
Regarding the job cuts, the company boss reported that he unfortunately saw no other choice because the company was losing four million dollars a day. He previously wrote that Twitter had “suffered a massive drop in revenue” as civil rights groups raised concerns about how the layoffs would affect freedom of expression.
Key advertisers have been pressured to withdraw their advertising spend. In addition to Volkswagen, other major customers such as United Airlines and the food company General Mills also stopped their advertising on Twitter. Twitter recently generated more than 90 percent of its income from advertising. Musk is now attempting to enforce a fee of $8 for verified accounts identified by a blue tick.
After the massive layoffs, its co-founder and former boss Jack Dorsey apologized to the employees. “I realize a lot of people are mad at me,” Dorsey wrote on Twitter on Saturday. He is responsible for the fact that Twitter employees are now in this situation: “I let the company grow too quickly. I apologize for that.” Dorsey co-founded the company in 2006 and stepped down as CEO last year. In the spring he also withdrew from the supervisory board.