The Elon Musk Purge Has Begun: Twitter Employees Tell the World They’ve Been Fired — Via Twitter

Justin Sullivan, Getty Images

The layoffs at Elon Musk-owned Twitter have begun.

Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, acquired Twitter, which at the time of acquisition had 7,500 employees, last month for $44 billion.

According to a copy of the letter that Twitter sent to employees on Thursday — which is now circulating on that platform — those who are to be laid off would receive an email in their personal inbox, while those not laid off would get an email in their Twitter email inbox. By 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT on Friday, all employees will have been notified of their employment status. Twitter offices will be closed on Friday. The exact number of employees that will be laid off this round is publicly unknown.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global work force,” stated the email. “We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

According to The New York Times:

About half of Twitter’s workers appeared set to lose their jobs, according to previous internal messages and an investor, though the final count may take time to become clear. As the email landed in employee inboxes on Thursday evening, workers posted salute emojis and heart emojis in Slack, the messaging service. Later in the evening, some employees said they had lost access to the company’s systems, a possible prelude to being laid off.

Former employees reacted on the platform from which they had just been laid off:

https://twitter.com/JoanDeitchman/status/1588430085035474944?s=20&t=hRDu8YzkKe_lNxuFNG_bKQ

https://twitter.com/railfan_/status/1588394856711266304?s=20&t=hRDu8YzkKe_lNxuFNG_bKQ

https://twitter.com/KaylaKasprak/status/1588418833181593601?s=20&t=hRDu8YzkKe_lNxuFNG_bKQ

https://twitter.com/gatorclos/status/1588340813364240385?s=20&t=hRDu8YzkKe_lNxuFNG_bKQ

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