Elon Musk fired 80% of Twitter, and Silicon Valley companies adopted the practice, finds report
Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, he sent in loyalists, including ex-boring company exec Steve Davis and cousin James Musk, to “examine whether existing employees were value for money," according to a report by The Telegraph. He soon slashed 6,000 workers or 80 per cent of then-Twitter, now X, in a move that shocked the industry.The report added that employees were reportedly asked to justify their roles and state which colleagues should be retained.
The diversity and inclusion departments and product and design teams suffered the most. Even Twitter's content moderation team was reduced.Also Read | Fired SpaceX workers sue Elon Musk for sexist ‘Dark Ages’ culture: ‘Runs company as…’“It was clearly pretty bloated.
You had to right-size the organisation. However, Musk went further than anyone predicted.
When he cuts a team, he cuts the whole team, and that creates significant chaos," one source told The Telegraph.“Musk had been hoping to rebuild the business with a challenger mindset and a clean slate. But lopping off whole divisions without a clear strategy left too many gaps to plug, and talent had plenty of opportunities at fast-growing start-ups like OpenAI rather than struggling Twitter," the source added.Musk's “radical downsizing" of the Silicon Valley tech major's workforce was met with forecasts of tough times ahead.
With whole teams lopped off, some key personnel fired overnight, new "free speech" policies that saw suspended accounts reinstated (i.e. Donald Trump), and warning of “hardcore, high intensity" work hours for retained staff, many had written off Musk-led X.But, despite user complaints of increased hate speech, white supremacy conspiracies gaining footing on the platform, and lags and
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