Twitter employees learn about their future through email

D.Twitter employees are expected to find out via email on Friday whether they are still working for the online service after it was taken over by Elon Musk. The letter will come with the subject “Your Role on Twitter,” the company announced Thursday evening (local time) in a circular published by several US media outlets. According to the media, with 3,700 jobs, roughly one in two short messaging jobs could be lost. Tech billionaire Musk completed the Twitter purchase for about $ 44 billion last week.

According to the circular, employees who can remain on Twitter should receive the email at 9:00 AM West Coast Time Friday (17:00 CET) at their company’s address. Those who lose their jobs will receive information on the next steps to their private email address. On Twitter it was understood that it was a “stimulating experience”, reads the circular email, which began with the greeting “Team” and was signed only “Twitter”.

Twitter offices will be closed on Friday and all access cards will be disabled, he said. “If you are in an office or on your way to the office, go home.” The measure is intended to ensure the security of employees, Twitter systems and user data.

The move should therefore be a precautionary measure to rule out any protest actions by those who have been fired. It wouldn’t be unprecedented: In November 2017, on his last day on the job, a support employee disabled the Twitter account of then US President Donald Trump. It took about ten minutes for the account to be back online.

Twitter has recently been in the red

The circular stated that job cuts were “sadly necessary to ensure the company’s future success.” Twitter has recently been in the red. Musk had also taken out about $ 13 billion in loans for the acquisition and, according to media reports, serving them requires more money than Twitter’s business generates in free funds.

For Twitter employees, the circular was the first official communication since Musk completed the Twitter purchase on Thursday last week, the Washington Post reported, among others. A general meeting with Musk was originally announced for Friday. However, this had been canceled, as well as a later date, it was said, citing employees.

Employees were very likely to learn of Musk’s ideas for the future of the service from the tech billionaire’s tweets. The Washington Post wrote Friday night that his advertised plans for new features in the Twitter Blue paid subscription offer came as a surprise to most employees in the responsible department. “We all work for Donald Trump’s White House,” said a staff member. He hinted that Trump made announcements on Twitter, sometimes without consulting officials, and that some of his ministers also learned of their dismissal from the US president’s tweets.