Mass layoffs at Twitter have begun

According to an unsigned internal document, Twitter has informed staff that it will be cutting its “global workforce” on Friday, November 4. The company announced that it will inform employees of potential staff cuts by Friday at 9am Pacific time (12 p.m. EDT/1600 GMT).

“Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the email said. “We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

Layoffs are beginning to take place as assumed by tweets from employees stating that they are no longer able to access Slack and their company emails.

Looks like I’m unemployed y’all. Just got remotely logged out of my work laptop and removed from Slack. #OneTeam forever. Loved you all so much.

So sad it had to end this way 💔

— Simon Balmain (@SBkcrn) November 4, 2022

Has it already started? Happy layoff eve! pic.twitter.com/0AcaQjGJvm

— Rumman Chowdhury (@ruchowdh) November 4, 2022

The news comes a week after Elon Musk acquired Twitter and immediately began altering the company’s operations and product strategy. Since then, rumors have abounded on Twitter regarding the date and size of the anticipated layoffs.

“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted,” the internal memo reads. “Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.”

The email doesn’t specify how many workers would be let go, but Musk is anticipated to lay off almost half of Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce, the Verge reported. According to staff members participating in the conversations, his team of outside advisers has spent the past week choosing which engineers and technical managers to retain mostly based on their most recent contributions to Twitter’s codebase.

Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk’s proposal to cut 3,700 positions at the social media platform led to a lawsuit against Twitter, which Twitter’s employees claim was done without enough notice and in violation of federal and California law.

“We filed this lawsuit tonight in an attempt the make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed Thursday’s complaint, said in an interview.