Elon Musk sacks 200 MORE Twitter staff – including top lieutenant
Twitter had laid off another 200 employees, including one of its most dedicated senior executives who bragged about sleeping in her office, before billionaire owner Elon Musk fired off a bizarre farewell tweet that interrupted some.
The latest round of layoffs began quietly on Saturday and represents about 10 percent of the company’s remaining approximately 2,000 employees.
Among those who abruptly received a pink slip was Musk supporter Esther Crawford, who several months ago spearheaded the team that launched the company’s Blue Check program.
The director of product management made a public commitment to Musk’s Twitter 2.0 hardcore office culture when, in November 2022, a photo of himself in a sleeping bag wearing a sleeping mask was widely shared in the office.
On Sunday, before the dust of the all-important round of shooting had settled, Musk fired a tweet which some say is a cryptic nod to those who are fired and those who are not.
“Hope you have a good Sunday,” he wrote. “First day of the rest of your life.”
Twitter owner Elon Musk laid off another 200 employees — about 10 percent of his remaining workforce — from the social media platform over the weekend
Musk fired off a tweet that some say is a cryptic nod to those fired
In what again could easily act as an ominous nod to the discontinued 200, Twitter user Richard Heart replied, “Except for those where today is their last.”
The layoffs affected the largest number of people at the company since Musk told employees at a meeting in late November that there were no more plans for staff cuts, following a mass layoff earlier this month.
Employees suddenly lost access to their Slack channel over the weekend, leading many to believe a purge was about to begin and many to believe it’s not over yet.
The latest cuts mostly affected product managers, including Crawford, but also data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability, according to the New York Times.
Staff took to an anonymous platform for verified employees to detail the cuts over the weekend.
“People get emails at 2am on Saturdays and access is immediately shut down. This will go down in history as one of the most extreme layoffs in company history Blind.
The poster claimed that the layoffs hit the project management department hardest and were spread across human relations, sales and marketing, engineering and finance.
Crawford, who before joining Twitter, founded a small screen sharing and video chat app called Squad, which Twitter acquired in 2020, saw her role eliminated.
Just like Haraldur Thorleifsson, who founded the design studio Ueno, who bought the company in 2021.
Martijn de Kuijper, a senior project manager, said he found out he was fired after losing access to his email account.
The cleaning up of most of the product team has led some to speculate that Musk is preparing to bring in entirely new teams.
Musk signaled changes in November to make Twitter a more hardcore work environment, warning staff to either get on board or leave the company.
The billionaire has been shrewd and direct about the financial turmoil facing the company and made it clear prior to his official takeover that cutting costs would be the number one priority.
Employees were told at the time that they had to sign a pledge to remain in their position. The staff received an email saying, “If you’re sure you want to be part of the new Twitter, click the yes link below.”
It linked to an online form, in which Musk told employees that if they didn’t sign by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, they would receive three months of severance pay.
Esther Crawford – Musk aficionado and one who committed to the new hardcore way of life on Twitter – was among those shown the door this weekend
Twitter’s headquarters can be seen in San Francisco, California on November 4, 2022 – just as the period of chaotic layoffs began to unfold
After that episode, the photo of Crawford lying on a brightly lit conference room floor went viral with the hashtag #SleepWhereYouWork attached.
Many online mocked her, saying that sleeping in the office indicates a clearly unhealthy relationship with work and that she would probably be fired in a matter of weeks anyway.
When news of her shot broke, Crawford took to the platform where she spent nights on a floor defending herself. She wrote, “The worst thing you can get from seeing me go all in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake.
“Those who mock and scoff are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I am immensely proud of the team that built through so much noise and chaos.”
Many Twitter users logged back in to congratulate those who were right about predicting Crawford’s demise with the company.