In a series of rapid changes to the Twitterverse, Elon Musk plans to lay off about 3,700 Twitter employees, or about half of the current workforce, according to a Bloomberg report on Wednesday that cited people familiar with the matter.
The move comes as an effort to cut costs following Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company. The interim CEO also plans to remove the current work-from-anywhere policy that was put into place at the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. Remaining employees will be required to report to the Twitter offices, with some exceptions, and Musk plans to inform staff affected by the layoffs on Friday, according to the report.
Since Musk took over the social media platform, several Twitter executives were fired including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, head of legal policy, trust, and safety. Musk also announced his decision to make Twitter Blue $8 a month, shut hundreds of employees out of content-moderation systems days before the midterms, and flirted with the idea of a “paywalled video” feature.
While Musk officially acquired the platform on Thursday, Oct. 27, in a deal for which he initially tried to back out, reports of impending layoffs are not a surprise. Since first announcing that he would buy the company in April, he previously shared a pitch deck with investors that revealed he planned to make Twitter private and shed workers to bring on new talent in engineering.
Senior personnel on the product teams were asked to reduce their staff by half, and other leaders were asked to make lists of team members they would cut, Bloomberg reports.
Musk seems to be reveling in his new position. He has since updated his Twitter bio from the previous self-described “Chief Twit” to “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator.” Earlier this week, pundits who just days ago had lauded the billionaire, turned on him after he revealed part of his content moderation strategy to create a council and to consult with “civil society leaders.”
“Being attacked by both right & left simultaneously is a good sign,” Musk tweeted in response.