Twitter's offices temporarily closed as the company underwent mass layoffs on Friday.
The tech company was expected to cut about half of its 7,500 staffers by Friday. A class action lawsuit in California filed on Thursday claimed Twitter violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act by not notifying employees at least 60 days prior to mass layoffs. However, many of the employees are being paid out through Jan. 4, which might not put Musk's company in violation of the law.
Cuts seem to have been made across the board from engineering to product development. According to the Washington Post, only two members of Twitter's communications staff — which controls public and media relations — remained on board. Ad sales, however, remained relatively intact.
The moves came shortly after tech mogul Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billon, saying he wanted to restore "free speech" to the platform. But with the acquisition comes the need to create a profitable vehicle. Twitter said in an internal letter to employees, it was "unfortunately necessary to ensure the company's success moving forward" to let many of the staff go.
While Musk has plans to create other forms of revenue, including charging $8 a month for account verification, Twitter by and large mostly relies on advertising. Musk had tweeted a letter to brands saying while he is in favor of open dialogue, he expressed that there should be some boundaries.
"Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!" he wrote. "In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences."
Other experts have also cast doubt that Musk could really remove all content restrictions from Twitter, citing local laws as well as the fact that toxic environments would drive aways users.
Other experts have also cast doubt that Musk could really remove all content restrictions from Twitter, citing local laws as well as the fact that toxic environments would drive aways users.
"People whose instinct is to be in favor of free speech and folks who think that Twitter has it in for conservative viewpoints are excited about a more open Twitter," Fast Company global technology editor Harry McCracken previously told Cheddar. "But they're excited about it as an idea and on principle rather than reality because it's clear that that a more unmoderated Twitter would actually be good for anybody."
Recently, Musk blamed Twitter's alleged "massive" drop in revenue to activist pressure for brands to leave the platform, even though no content moderation changes have been enacted yet. But agencies told Cheddar that Twitter's advertising product had issues before Musk because it was better for building brand awareness than performance marketing, or making sure every dollar spent lead to a direct dollar in sales. With budgets tighter as consumers curb spending, more companies were looking towards making sure the marketing budgets lead to product purchases.
Musk doubled down on his allegations at the Baron Investment Conference in New York on Friday that "activists" were running Twitter.
"We've made no change in our operations at all," he said. "And we've done our absolute best to appease them and nothing is working. So this is a major concern. And I think this is frankly an attack on the First Amendment."
"We've made no change in our operations at all," he said. "And we've done our absolute best to appease them and nothing is working. So this is a major concern. And I think this is frankly an attack on the First Amendment."
