San Francisco/New Delhi (The Hawk): Elon Musk ruthlessly fired over half of Twitter's 7,600-person employees, closing numerous divisions completely around the world, including in India, in one of the most severe layoffs the tech industry has ever witnessed.
According to The Verge, teams working on trust and safety problems, such as those entrusted with fending against election misinformation before the US midterm elections on November 8, were hit the worst.
Product trust and safety, policy, communications, tweet curation, ethical AI, data science, research, machine learning, social good, accessibility, and several key engineering teams were among the Twitter verticals that suffered the most.
Additionally fired were Tony Haile, a senior director of product, and Arnaud Weber, vice president of consumer product engineering.
"I have also chosen to disconnect from Twitter. People on both sides of the 50% divide are unsure of whether to feel grateful or devastated today "Haile, a former Twitter Frontiers Lead, tweeted.
The futures of those still employed by the company are uncertain.
"I discovered when I woke up that my employment with Twitter had ended. I'm devastated. I'm denying it. The experience has been the finest, wildest, and most rewarding of my career. I have enjoyed every second of it "Michele Austin, a former employee of Twitter, said.
Musk fired the majority of its over 200-person workforce in India.
Marketing, engineering, and communications departments were reportedly the hardest hit.
Those whose jobs were protected are always terrified that they would lose them in the subsequent round, which they believe will come shortly.
The roles of workers in other nations have been "identified as potentially impacted or at risk of redundancy," according to the notification sent to those workers.
The layoffs will affect "approximately 50% of the staff," according to the employee FAQ.
Musk expressed his eagerness to "communicate with everyone about his vision for the company in the near future."
Twitter has been sued in the US for mass layoffs that occurred without providing written advance warning to employees.
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and the California WARN Act, both of which call for 60 days' notice, are among the worker protection regulations that have been violated, according to the case, which was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
(Inputs from Agencies)
