Wave of terminations on Twitter: “I don’t want to admit it”

For the first time, the confirmation came directly from the Twitter team: about half of all employees have been fired. The takeover by Musk already has financial consequences for the group. Big advertisers are turning away.

Around a week after Elon Musk took over the short message service Twitter, around half of the entire workforce lost their jobs. The nature of the terminations is not only causing displeasure among those affected – and the first possible legal consequences are already being indicated for the Internet company.

A tweet from the ranks of the remaining “Tweeps”, as the employees call themselves, confirmed the scope of the massive layoffs for the first time: Yoel Roth, head of the department for security and integrity at Twitter, wrote that in his department 15 percent of the employees had been terminated. Around 50 percent of all colleagues are in the entire company.

The media had previously speculated unanimously about this number – around 3,700 deleted positions out of a total of around 7,500.

“Today is your last day at the company”

Whether they’ll lose their job or keep it, Twitter employees have found out via email how ARD correspondent Nils Dampz reported. Emails were sent to the entire workforce on Friday: Anyone who received them on their Twitter work account can stay. If Twitter had sent the email to the private address, that meant termination. “Today is your last day at the company,” it is said to have said in the last few emails.

The layoffs are said to have occurred across all departments, says Kurt Wagner from the Bloomberg agency: from technology to product development, even the press team has been radically reduced. The PR for Twitter should therefore now be taken over by two people from the previously 80 to 100 employees who were responsible for it.

Thousands express disappointment and shock

Under the hashtag #twitterlayoffs, translated “Twitter layoffs”, thousands post their dissatisfaction – including the fired Twitter manager Michele Austin. “I woke up to the news that my time on Twitter had come to an end. It breaks my heart. I don’t want to believe it,” she wrote.

The heavily pregnant employee Rachel Bonn was also dismissed. She wrote on Twitter that just hours after Musk announced staff cuts, access to her work laptop had been disabled.

Laid-off employees file a class action lawsuit

A group of five previously fired employees promptly filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter. They accuse the company of not giving them 60 days’ notice of the layoff, as required by law. This violates both California State law and United States federal law.

The new Twitter owner Musk has so far hardly commented on the massive layoffs after the takeover. Also on Twitter, he only announced that all affected employees had been offered a three-month severance package.

Big advertisers are leaving

Rather, Musk is concerned about an increasing slump in Twitter revenue. The short message service obtains this primarily from advertisements. According to the dpa news agency, more than 90 percent of all the group’s income is said to have been generated through advertising.

But several major advertisers announced after Musk took over that they would no longer advertise on Twitter. The background to the advertising freeze is fear that Musk could drastically scale back the platform’s efforts to combat the spread of hate messages and misinformation.

The US automaker General Motors had already stopped advertising on Twitter last week. Recently, other corporations followed, such as the food giant General Mills and the car manufacturer Volkswagen. Volkswagen said the group had recommended brands like Audi and Skoda to stop their activities on Twitter for the time being.

United Airlines has now also announced that it will no longer advertise on Twitter. The pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer and the food company Mondelez also want to end their cooperation with Twitter, the Wall Street Journal and the dpa news agency reported unanimously.

According to Musk, Twitter loses millions a day

Musk needs the advertisers. The boss of the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the aerospace company SpaceX paid 44 billion US dollars, the equivalent of around 44 billion euros, for Twitter, and according to the media he is said to have taken out loans that now have to be serviced.

But Twitter has been struggling with economic problems for a long time. Among other things, the short message service had made losses in the first two quarters of the year. The group is now said to be losing four million dollars a day, as Musk himself wrote on Twitter. Which left him no choice in view of the extensive layoffs.

Musk criticizes attack on free speech

Musk believes that “activists,” who he has not described in detail, are also responsible for turning away advertisers. In fact, under the hashtag #StopToxicTwitterCoalition, more than 60 civil society organizations called for a Twitter advertising boycott. A critical moderation of Twitter content is no longer possible due to the wave of layoffs, according to a statement from the alliance. Hate speech is a serious problem, especially in view of the upcoming congressional elections in the USA.

Musk had already tried to reassure advertisers in an open letter last week and he assured that Twitter would not be a place where users could allow themselves anything without consequences. Musk accuses the activists of attacking “the First Amendment” with the pressure they are exerting – which would mean an attack on the right to free speech.