Following his acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion, reports reveal that Tesla CEO Elon Musk is set to slash the company’s workforce by 50%.
Musk, who is currently acting as an interim CEO at the company has been consulting his team of advisors regarding job cuts and other policy changes, as he plans to inform Twitter staffers of the major layoffs on Friday, Nov. 4.
Heads of teams at the company have been mandated to prepare a layoff list, which would slash their respective teams by 50%. Also, employees will be shortlisted based on their contributions during their tenure at the company.
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Recall that immediately after his takeover from the company, Musk fired some top executives such as Twitter’s former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde.
The company which has a total number of 7,500 staff, with half of its workforce soon to be slashed, will mean that only about 3,750 employees would be left at the company. However, laid off staff may be offered 60 days’ worth of severance pay, according to the report.
Aside from the slash in the company’s workforce, Musk has also disclosed that he will abolish the remote work model, therefore mandating that every employee is expected to be present at the workplace.
This doesn’t come as a surprise as he had done the same at his Tesla company, where he told his staff members that remote work is no longer available, which he also set expectations for working in the office full-time.
Musk’s decision to lay off 50% of Twitter’s workforce will come as a shocker to some employees at the company, after he had earlier doused tension about 75% job cut, assuring them that he does not plan to do so.
The billionaire denied previous reports that he said he hoped to slash three quarters of Twitter’s workforce during a visit to the company’s San Francisco headquarters.
However, due to his unpredictable nature, a number of Twitter employees voluntarily left the company prior to his takeover, rather than work in a dramatic and unpredictable workplace.
Meanwhile on Twitter, Musk has changed his Twitter bio to read “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator” and appears to be reveling in his complete control of the company.
“Twitter is simply the most interesting place on the internet,” he tweeted Wednesday. “That’s why you’re reading this tweet right now.”
On the other hand, Musk has not yet disclosed plans of how he intends to reshape the company, but he is clearly on a mission to cut costs at the company, given the outrageous amount he had to pay during his take over deal.