NEW: Employees who have criticized Elon Musk in Twitter’s Slack channels were fired overnight over email.
“We regret to inform you that your employment is terminated immediately,” they’re being told over email. “Your recent behavior has violated company policy.”
It’s not clear how many people were affected; seems like it’s more than 10 people but I’m working to learn more.
More in @Plaformer today; email me if you know something.
Here’s one of the affected employees, who had pushed back on Musk’s tweets blaming performance issues on Twitter’s architecture.
“One of the absolute best engineers we had,” one employee tells me. "A legend in her area of expertise.”
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
Contractors aren’t being notified at all, they’re just losing access to Slack and email. Managers figured it out when their workers just disappeared from the system.
They heard nothing from their leaders
One manager just posted in Slack:"one of my contractors just got deactivated without notice in the middle of making critical changes to our child safety workflows"
Looking away from the timeline long enough to write a newsletter today proving to be the hardest challenge @platformer has ever faced
From @ZoeSchiffer and I, an account of one of the most chaotic days in Twitter’s history. We’re making it free for everyone to read because we think the whole story needs to be told.
According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night.
An employee says it will be up to engineers to “self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws.”
“All of this is extremely dangerous for our users,” the message says. “Given that the FTC can (and will!) fine Twitter BILLIONS of dollars pursuant to the FTC Consent Order, extremely detrimental to Twitter’s longevity as a platform. Our users deserve so much better than this.”
Multiple sources and Twitter Blind chats now saying that the company has begun to reach out to some people it laid off yesterday asking them to come back. Whoops! 🥴
From Twitter Slack: “sorry to @- everybody on the weekend but I wanted to pass along that we have the opportunity to ask folks that were left off if they will come back. I need to put together names and rationales by 4PM PST Sunday.
“I’ll do some research but if any of you who have been in contact with folks who might come back and who we think will help us, please nominate tomorrow before 4
The company is closing its offices and suspending all badge access while the layoffs unfold. The company asked everyone to go home.
“Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.
We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and your patience as we move through this process.”