Maybe Not the Best Time to Start a Career With a Social Media Company
upstart writes:
Twitter slashes nearly half its workforce as Musk admits 'massive drop' in revenue:
Elon Musk ended his first week as Twitter's owner with an indelible mark by slashing, by some estimates, up to half of the company's workforce with little notice and abruptly cutting off employees' access to their computers and work systems.
Many employees spent the day tweeting their goodbyes, as Musk revealed brands had begun pulling their advertisements, leading to what he said was a "massive drop in revenue". He tweeted late Friday the cuts were needed as "unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day".
Audi, General Motors, General Mills and Pfizer were among those who halted advertisements, amid concerns Musk will scale back misinformation and security protections on the platform. Advertising accounts for 90% of Twitter's revenues.
Yoel Roth, Twitter's head of safety and integrity appeared to confirm reports that 50% of the company's global workforce of 7,500 was cut.
[...] One employee told the Guardian that the platform could not "function as usual" on Friday because so many members of staff had been locked out of their employee work accounts.
The cuts come as the company's new billionaire owner scrambles to turn a profit one week after he purchased the platform for $44bn, a far higher cost than it was valued. Last month, Musk had said he was "obviously overpaying for Twitter right now".
[...] "In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce," the email said. "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."
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