Twitter Layoffs And Resignations: Who Quit and Who Got Fired During Elon Musk's Era Post The Acquisition
Take a look at the timeline of Twitter layoffs and resignations over the last few weeks.
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, the microblogging site has made it to the news every single day, whether it was initially due to the takeover, then due to the verification subscriptions or later due to its mass layoffs. In a short span of time, Twitter and its employees have seen a lot. Here’s taking a look at all the firings and stepdown that happened in the company in the last few days.
Elon Musk Starts Clearing Out Twitter’s C-suite
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was completed on October 27, 2022. Post his acquisition, Musk immediately fired four of Twitter’s top executives, namely, Parag Agrawal(CEO), Ned Segal(CFO), Sean Edgett(General Counsel) and Vijaya Gadde(Policy Head). In fact, it was also reported that the recently ousted CEO Parag Agrawal and Chairman Bret Taylor were also removed from the Board of Directors making Musk the sole director of the company, as per the merger.
Later on, several people resigned from Twitter over the weekend including Damien Viel (Head of France), Tess Rinearson (Crypto Lead), Sarah Personette (Chief Consumer Officer), Dalana Brand (Chief People and Diversity Officer), and many others.
Sarah Personette, former Chief Consumer Officer at Twitter, announced her resignation via a Twitter thread on the same day. She talked about how it has been her “greatest privilege” to work at the company while sharing “Love and gratitude to everyone” including her team as well as the consumers.
Meanwhile, Damien Viel, who was the Head of France, left a simple note giving out all his “thoughts, respect, energy and love to all tweeps around the world.”
On the other hand, Chief People and Diversity Officer, Dalana Brand, shared a rather long thread recalling her “4 amazing years” of working at Twitter, calling it “one of the best experiences” of her career.
Crypto Lead Tess Rinearson, before she resigned, was seen acknowledging the uncertainty at the company while appreciating the support shown by people towards each other.
Mass Layoffs Across Twitter
Exactly a week after this acquisition, on November 3, 2022, thousands of Twitter employees were laid off without any prior intimation. In fact, most of these employees claimed that they were suddenly logged out of their work laptops while being removed from Slack as well.
This move left all the fired employees stunned and confused as none of them knew what was happening. The next morning several people got emails informing them about the layoff. However, many employees claimed the mail didn’t include many details either.
On the same day, Musk talked about the “massive drop in revenue” due to activists pressurizing the advertisers, hinting that this could be a reason for the cut-offs.
Later, directly commenting on Twitter’s workforce reduction, Musk said that he had “no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day”. Moreover, he also claimed that everyone who was fired got a 3-month severance which, in his words, is “50% more than legally required.”
Twitter had 7,500 employees before Musk joined them. That means, approximately 3,700 employees were fired in this single move.
Dozens Requested To Come Back Post Layoff
According to a Bloomberg report, just a few days after Twitter’s mass layoff, dozens of employees were requested to come back to work at Twitter Inc. While several of these firings were claimed to be “mistakes” by the company, many others were called back as their expertise and experience may prove to be valuable while building the new features that Musk envisions for Twitter.
Hundreds Decide To Quit After Musk’s Ultimatum
Hardly two weeks after the initial layoff, Twitter’s new director, Elon Musk sent out a midnight email on November 16, asking employees to gear up to work in a “hardcore” work culture as they start building a breakthrough Twitter 2.0. He said, “We will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity.”
Twitter employees who agreed with the terms, and were ready to put in more hours of work were asked to click a “Yes” on a link given in the email by 5 pm ET on November 17. It was also mentioned that whoever fails to do so will be receiving their “three months of severance”, meaning they’ll be laid off as well.
Reacting to this, hundreds of employees decided to resign and quit the company on their own terms. However, Musk seems to be least bothered about it. Replying to a Twitter user on all the layoffs and resignations, Musk said that he wasn’t that worried as “The best people are staying.”
The count remained close to 3,700 employees after the first layoff. However, according to sources close to the company, after the email asking people to go “hardcore”, approximately 1200 full-time employees have resigned from Twitter.
Another Layoff Or Ready To Hire?
According to a recent report, Musk was considering firing more employees in Twitter’s sales and partnership team over the current week. As per the report, Musk has already started the layoffs by firing Robin Wheeler, head of marketing and sales, and Maggie Suniewick, head of partnerships after they refused to fire their subordinates.
Meanwhile, another report claims that after firing about two-thirds of the micro-blogging platform's 7,500 employees, Musk is now actively looking at hiring for positions in engineering and sales. In fact, some people even claimed that Musk had a staff meeting where he not only informed his staffer of the move but also asked them to share recommendations for the open positions.
Whether Musk fires more employees or hires new ones, is something we’ll have to wait and watch.