Twitter Not Planning Large Numbers Of Layoffs

Twitter has indicated that it will continue restructuring the business post Elon Musk, but is not planning on large-scale job losses.

The platform announced this week (after repeated warnings) that it is suing Elon Musk over his decision to terminate his $44 billion acquisition of the platform.

Musk said he was walking away from the agreement because Twitter had fired high-ranking executives and one-third of the talent acquisition team, breaching Twitter’s obligation to “preserve substantially intact the material components of its current business organisation.”

Worried staff

Musk also cited the unknown number of fake accounts and bots, as part of his reasoning to walk away.

It is fair to say that most Twitter staff will be relieved that Elon Musk pulled out of the deal, after they endured months of uncertainty over his “will he, won’t he” approach to the takeover.

Twitter staff were concerned at Musk’s attitude to cutting headcount and other costs, decreasing content moderation and limiting remote working.

Elon Musk spoke with Twitter employees in a virtual ‘all hands’ meeting in mid June.

While he touched upon potential layoffs, alien life, remote working, and free speech, Musk failed to reassure Twitter staff about the future under his stewardship.

Twitter restructuring

Twitter said in a filing on Wednesday it is not looking at company-wide layoffs but could likely continue to restructure the business.

It also added in the filing that it had sent Musk a formal request to approve two tailored employee retention programs in June, but he did not provide his consent.

“We’re not looking at company-wide layoffs,” said the firm in the filing. “However, teams from across the company are reprioritising and making changes to ensure we are operating responsibly and efficiently in the current operating environment.”

“We may continue to see restructuring and org changes as we continue to align with our revised business needs (as we always have in the past),” it added.

And there is no doubt that there been some changes within Twitter’s executive team in recent months.

In January Twitter said its head of security was no longer at the company and its chief information security officer would also depart in the coming weeks.

The company didn’t say whether the departures were voluntary.

The changes were the latest move under chief executive Parag Agrawal, who succeeded co-founder Jack Dorsey last November.

In May it emerged that CEO Agrawal had dismissed two senior executives, namely Kayvon Beykpour, who used to led Twitter’s consumer division; and Bruce Falck, who oversaw revenue.

Both men confirmed their departures were not their decision.

That same month Twitter said it would pause hiring and review all existing job offers to determine whether any “should be pulled back.”

Then it was revealed that Twitter had lost three more senior employees, who jumped ship from the platform.

These executives were named as Ilya Brown, VP of product management; Katrina Lane, VP of Twitter Service; and Max Schmeiser, head of data science.