Nov 4 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc will notify employees via email on Friday if they have been laid off, temporarily closing its offices and barring staff access, after a week of uncertainty over the company’s future under new owner Elon Musk.
The social media company said in an email to staff that it will alert employees on Friday at 9:00 a.m. Pacific time (12:00 p.m. EDT/1600 GMT) of the staff cuts.
“In an effort to put Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” reads the email sent on Thursday, seen by Reuters.
Musk, the world’s richest person, is seeking to cut about 3,700 Twitter employees, about half of the workforce, as he seeks to cut costs and impose a tough new work ethic, according to internal plans reviewed by Reuters this week.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Twitter said in the email that its offices would be temporarily closed and all badge access would be suspended to “help ensure the safety of every employee as well as Twitter’s systems and customer data.”
The company said employees not affected by the layoffs would be notified through their work email addresses. Staff who had been laid off would be notified of next steps at their personal email addresses, the memo said.
Some employees tweeted that their access to the company’s computer system had been blocked and feared it might suggest they had been fired.
[1/2] The Twitter app logo is seen in this illustration taken August 22, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
“Looks like I’m all out of work. Just remotely logged out of my work laptop and removed it from Slack,” tweeted one user of the @SBkcrn account, whose profile is described as a former community manager. senior on Twitter.
A class action lawsuit was filed Thursday against Twitter by its employees, who argued the company was carrying out mass layoffs without providing the required 60-day notice, in violation of federal and California laws.
The lawsuit also asked the federal court in San Francisco to issue an order prohibiting Twitter from soliciting terminated employees to sign documents without informing them of the pending case.
Musk has asked Twitter teams to find up to $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings, according to two sources familiar with the matter and an internal Slack post reviewed by Reuters.
He had already gutted the company’s upper ranks, firing its chief executive and key financial and legal officers. Others, including those who sat at the top of the company’s advertising, marketing and human resources divisions, have left over the past week.
Musk’s first week as owner of Twitter has been marked by chaos and uncertainty. Two company-wide meetings were scheduled, only to be canceled hours later. Employees told Reuters they had to gather information through media reports, private messaging groups and anonymous forums.
The long-awaited layoffs have chilled Twitter’s famous open corporate culture, praised by many of its employees.
“If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please go home,” Twitter said in the email Thursday.
Shortly after the email landed in employee inboxes, hundreds of people flooded the company’s Slack channels to say goodbye, two employees told Reuters. Someone invited Musk to join the channel, the sources said.
Reporting by Sheila Dang, Katie Paul, Paresh Dave and Fanny Potkin; Editing by Richard Pullin, Lincoln Feast and Mark Potter
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