The world's richest man is firing half of Twitter employees after officially becoming the owner and CEO of the blue bird platform since finishing a deal worth $44 billion on October 27.
- Nov 5, 2022
AceShowbiz - Elon Musk is defending his decision to fire half of Twitter employees. Taking to his social media account, the world's richest man who bought the platform for $44 billion issued a statement after the employees filed a lawsuit regarding mass firing.
On Friday, November 4, the 51-year-old billionaire tweeted, "Regarding Twitter's reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day." He further explained that anyone who "exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required."
A few hours earlier, Elon posted, "Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists." He noted, "Extremely messed up! They're trying to destroy free speech in America."
Elon later retweeted an "excellent summary of Twitter's Trust & Safety from the head of the team" following the massive firing. The post read, "Here are the facts about where Twitter's Trust & Safety and moderation capacity stands today: While we said goodbye to incredibly talented friends and colleagues yesterday, our core moderation capabilities remain in place."
"Yesterday's reduction in force affected approximately 15% of our Trust & Safety organization (as opposed to approximately 50% cuts company-wide), with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact," it added. "Last week, for security reasons, we restricted access to our internal tools for some users, including some members of my team. Most of the 2,000+ content moderators working on front-line review were not impacted, and access will be fully restored in the coming days."
Elon then stated in a following post, "Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter's strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged." The SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO continued, "In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press."
So far, reports state Twitter has lost around 3,700 staffers. A handful of employees moved quickly to file a class action lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of Twitter workers.
The case was filed preemptively "so Twitter's workers wouldn't be taken advantage of and sign away their rights," said the lead attorney on the case, Shannon Liss-Riordan. "There's a lot of concern going on around Twitter employees about what would happen today when reportedly half the workforce would be let go," she added.
The paperwork alleged that Twitter is letting go of staff without adequate notice, in violation of California and federal employment law. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification act, or WARN, requires at least a 60-day notice before conducting mass layoffs.
Elon officially finished the takeover deal worth $44 billion on October 27. Shortly after, the business magnate announced that he'll charge $8 a month for verified users who have blue tick.
Since Elon became the owner and CEO of Twitter, many famous names decided to quit the platform, including Sara Bareilles, Toni Braxton, Mick Foley, Alex Winter, Shonda Rhimes, Brian Koppelman and Erik Larsen.
