American billionaire Elon Musk justified the decision to lay off about half of the employees of the Twitter company he bought last week.
Musk – the richest person in the world – said in a tweet today, Saturday, that there was, unfortunately, no other option for Twitter than to reduce the number of its employees, and it is losing more than 4 million dollars a day.
Musk added that each employee who is laid off will be paid 3 months’ salary as compensation, which is 50% more than the amount required by law.
An internal document sent to Twitter employees and seen by AFP on Friday said “about 50% of employees will be affected” by the company’s ongoing layoffs.
The California-based company bought by Elon Musk last week and employing 7,500 employees at the end of October, began a series of layoffs around the world and announced a temporary closure of its offices.
The social media company said in an email to its employees that it will alert them at 9 a.m. PT on Friday (12 p.m. EST, 4 p.m. UTC) about the staff reduction.
“In an effort to put Twitter on the right track, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” said the email sent on Thursday and seen by Reuters.
Musk is looking to cut about 3,700 Twitter employees, about half of its workforce, as he seeks to cut costs and impose new work values, according to internal plans seen by Reuters this week.
The email stated that the company’s offices will be temporarily closed, by suspending employee entry permits, in order to “help ensure the safety of each employee, as well as Twitter systems and customer data.”
The company said that employees who are not affected by the layoffs will be notified via a work email.
The memo said that the laid-off employees will be notified of the next steps via their personal email.
Some employees posted tweets showing problems with their access to the company’s IT system, expressing nervousness and fear that the move was evidence that they had been laid off.
