Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc. fired hundreds of workers on Saturday. This was at least the ninth round of layoffs since Musk took over the social network in late October.
The report in the U.S. technology-focused publication early on Sunday, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter, said that the job cuts affected multiple engineering teams, including those supporting advertising technology, the primary Twitter app, as well as technical infrastructure to keep systems up and running.
Early in November, Musk, who had just paid $44 billion for Twitter, slashed costs by firing around 3,700 workers.
A source says that the most recent layoffs are meant to make up for the drop in revenue caused by Musk’s purchase and further reduce the staff, which had already been cut by at least 70% to about 2,000 people.
In November, Musk claimed that the service had seen a “huge loss in revenue” as a result of advertisers cutting back due to worries over content filtering.
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The Sales Division Layoff
Elon Musk, an internet billionaire who owns the microblogging site Twitter, has announced yet another round of layoffs. This time, the ad sales department will be affected. The move followed the recent shutdown of Twitter’s headquarters in Mumbai and New Delhi and comes only a few months after the business cut personnel in its sales division.
According to a study, Twitter employed about 800 people in sales and marketing as of last month. The social media company is rumored to be making expense reductions in an effort to make the ailing microblogging service a successful business. Twitter chose to close its locations in Delhi and Mumbai, leaving only the Bangalore headquarters open.
Staff reductions that have already occurred and included employees in the content moderation division have fueled concerns about a rise in hate speech on the platform.
After Twitter downsized its workforce by 50% in the first few weeks, there were several rumors of additional layoffs and resignations amid worries about a “very rigorous” workplace with “long hours at high intensity.”
The “Verified” Badge
Meanwhile, the business unveiled a new, upgraded Twitter Blue membership service, which costs Rs 650 per month for users on the internet and Rs 900 per month for users on Android and iOS. Twitter said that it is now providing an annual plan for its sought-after “verified” badge, including a subscription service dubbed Twitter Blue, at a discount to its monthly cost. Instead of paying $8 per month on the web and $11 per month for Apple devices to subscribe to the service, users can pay an annual fee of $84 to do so. According to the company, the discount would be accessible in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia.
The most recent layoffs show that Twitter is still working to strengthen its financial position.
The ownership change occurred last year.
Late last year, Elon Musk paid $44 billion to buy Twitter, changing the social media site’s ownership. In the first weeks after agreeing to buy the company, Musk repeatedly emphasised his intention to support “free speech” on the platform and seek to “unlock” Twitter’s “amazing potential” in the early weeks. The CEO of Tesla said he would reevaluate the policy on content moderation and lifetime bans, which could affect civic dialogue and the political climate. Even while he later made the number of bots a primary argument for quitting the contract, he also mentioned his goal to purge their platform of them in his speech.
The company also announced additional changes, including the dismissal of more than 50% of its staff (more than 90% in India).According to those familiar with the situation, Musk had dismissed Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, CFO, Ned Segal, and head of law and policy, Vijaya Gadde. He had claimed that they had misled him and Twitter’s investors over the prevalence of fraudulent accounts on the site.
