Elon Musk plans to slash Twitter Inc.’s workforce by 50% as soon as Friday, according to a new report.
Citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported late Wednesday that about 3,700 jobs could be eliminated, with affected workers being notified Friday. Also, Twitter’s work-from-anywhere policy would be rescinded, with most remaining employees required to work from the office. The report said Musk and a team of his advisers are still in the planning process, and the final number of layoffs could change.
Twitter employees have been bracing for cuts since Musk officially took ownership of the social-media company last week and fired its top executives. A previous report said Musk had planned on
cutting 75% of Twitter’s workforce, but Musk denied cuts that deep last week.
Still, such drastic layoffs could gut the company’s ability to moderate hate speech, misinformation and spam, and endanger the site’s technical reliability and security.
Also see: People banned from Twitter won’t have accounts restored for weeks, Elon Musk says
Twitter workers have been scrambling to show their value in hopes of saving their jobs, with some managers demanding 12-hour shifts seven days a week to reach aggressive deadlines set by Musk, CNBC reported Tuesday.
Among the new features Musk is reportedly rushing: A revamp of the Twitter Blue subscription plan, where blue verification checkmarks would be bought for $8 a month — raising worries about the spread of misinformation — and a paywalled video feature, raising concerns of a proliferation of porn.
