Twitter layoff begins under Elon Musk starting Friday: Report

Elon Musk has confirmed layoffs at Twitter, a move that was long anticipated by employees ever since the billionaire started talks and finally took control of the social media firm. On Thursday, the company sent an email to employees asking them to be ready for layoffs, which is likely to happen on Friday.

The microblogging site has asked employees who are on their way to the office to return home and wait for an internal memo to hit their mailbox. Whether or not an employee has been affected by layoffs, Twitter will send an email to them.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognise 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...” the memo said.

It added that “by 9 am PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter.”

“Twitter employees who are not affected by the layoffs will be notified via their work email addresses and those who have been laid off will be notified with next steps to their personal email addresses,” the memo said.

While the company hasn’t confirmed, reports suggest that Musk will fire almost 50% staff by Friday. He has already fired top management people including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and legal head Vijaya Gadde, among others.

A fresh report has also surfaced that Twitter has been sued over Musk's massive plans to lay off its workforce, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing a class-action lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court.

Twitter employees say the company is eliminating workers without enough notice in violation of federal and California law, the report said.

An employee working in the legal department tweeted that she (anticipated) would be laid off on Friday. She warned the “state law however gives a 60 days’ notice for a massive layout and for 50+ employees it is at least 30 days…”

Some employees have expressed a desire to be laid off and get severance, while others believe disagreeing with Musk may mean losing both their jobs and exit package.”

“It’s total chaos, house melting down” said one employee, even though the move was ‘kind of anticipated’ and the entire atmosphere seemed ‘tensed’.

“At the end of the nightmare, I better get a cash prize,” said another employee.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has removed “days of rest” from Twitter staff calendars, according to various reports.

The monthly, company-wide day off was introduced during the pandemic period. Its expiration is another sign of Musk's impatience with Twitter's existing work culture.

Musk also plans to cancel Twitter's remote work policy and have staff that are spared from deep layoffs return to Twitter offices full time.