Elon Musk is progressing plans to slim down Twitter since he bought the 396 million-member platform for US$44 billion (£38 billion) on October 27. Musk’s deal has taken Twitter private, dissolved the platform’s board and enhanced his unilateral power as CEO. But mass redundancy announcements made since he took control have been scrutinised globally.
Musk’s plans to restructure Twitter began with laying off top executives, before notifications were emailed to around half of the Twitter global workforce that they were being made redundant or that their jobs were at risk. In a memo to staff, Musk defended the firings as “an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path” and “unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward”.
The widely reported memo also informed employees that they would find out their fate by email. It said: