Elon Musk is now targeting contract workers at Twitter after sacking half of Tesla’s crew. Platformer Casey Newton and Axios both report that contract worker layoffs occurred on the social media platform on Saturday afternoon. The magnitude of the layoffs was first unclear, but Newton believed that approximately 4,400 workers would be affected. The shift will almost certainly have a significant impact on Twitter’s ability to control content and maintain its service.
Those who lost their jobs over the weekend on Twitter appear to have received no communication either. Having their access to Twitter’s internal systems suddenly revoked, many employees learned they were no longer employed by the business. In one instance, a manager complained in the company’s Slack, “One of my contractors just was deactivated without notice in the middle of making significant changes to our child safety workflows,” citing Newton. Still, others learned of the reductions through news accounts. Now some employees are scared that they won’t get paid for their final two weeks of work. Many contractors were assigned to teams after Twitter’s layoffs on November 4 that had no full-time employees, meaning that no one could verify their hours worked.
Getting word that a large number of number of Twitter contractors were just laid off this afternoon with no notice, both in the US and abroad. Functions affected appear to include content moderation, real estate, and marketing, among others
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 13, 2022
These layoffs follow a tumultuous week for Twitter. The new Twitter Blue membership with verification was launched on Wednesday, but the firm temporarily halted sign-ups on Friday due to an influx of trolls. Twitter is losing so much money, Musk reportedly told employees, that filing for bankruptcy is “not out of the question.”
