Elon Musk took over Twitter in October 2022. In November 2022, the staff cut at Twitter was about 7500. This means Twitter fired 7500 employees and a range of contractors in various centers globally – approximately 50% of the employees were laid off in early November. The scenario was followed by more reductions and rationalization, with more employees being laid off.
Before the first layoff was announced, the internal communication service, Slack, was taken offline, making it difficult for the employees to communicate. Also, they were logged out of their company’s email accounts and laptops – which gave people a hint that the layoff had begun. The staff cut at Twitter hit several product managers, data scientists, engineers, and many more – who have kept Twitter’s various features online daily and night.
According to a report, Musk claimed that Twitter’s headcount is now down to around 2300 staff in total, and the staff cut at Twitter has risen to 70% as of January – which seems drastic. Twitter sacked almost 5000 employees – but what is the impact?
Twitter is still running like it was before. However, there were several bumps on the journey, and surely things are not running as they should have been. Now, the report is, Musk is planning on eliminating another 50 roles, including engineers. It has also been reported that Esther Crawford, who actively supported Elon’s Twitter reformation movement, has now joined the company’s long list of former employees.
Will Staff Cut at Twitter Lead to a Major Problem?
It would be no surprise if Twitter suffered a major outage. Staff cuts at Twitter are a cost-cutting process for the company, which has not resulted in any massive damage yet. But some say Twitter’s cost-cutting program was much needed to get the platform back to neutral footing and positively look ahead to the future of revenue.
The last report of staff cuts at Twitter in Q2 ’22 says the staff cost was $950 million. This was before Musk took over. Though the reports after he was in charge are not yet out but some believe that if Elon has reduced the staff cost at Twitter by 80%, which includes the high-salaried individuals. This would cut it to somewhere about $190 million, and given that Twitter’s ad income is allegedly declining, it has to continue culling to stay up with the decreased inflow.
So, for every lower revenue, Twitter has to reconsider the costs. Also, with Twitter Blue (the scheme which is followed by Meta), performance is not up to the mark, and Elon is not happy about the revenue stats. Hence, it would be no surprise if he fired more employees.
But the question arises – how many cuts can Twitter handle? Every time the expected revenue does not come in, will the company have to lay off its employees? But again, with so many employees fired, the application is working well – does that mean Twitter was overflowing with employees?
Maybe we will get to know this someday. But the staff cut at Twitter has shocked many.