The American billionaire has started Elon Musk Hundreds of Twitter employees were fired on Friday, four days before the midterm elections, including team members working in the US elections and editing content on the social media platform.
Tweets flooded the platform on Friday, and several employees used hashtags to share news while other employees said they were abandoned.
Many of those previously laid off have worked in senior departments including public policy, trust, security, communications, engineering, marketing, and human resources.
According to a person close to the company who asked for anonymity, half of Twitter’s public policy team has been banned, including members of the team that monitors politicians’ accounts.
Elon Musk (Associated Press)
Since buying Twitter last week, the billionaire has insisted on maintaining the company’s content management and disinformation policies and has been trying to placate advertisers who have been waiting for his promises to restore more free content to his news feed.
Late Friday, Musk tweeted that “Twitter’s strong commitment to moderating content hasn’t changed at all.”
However, the layoffs on Friday appear to add fuel to concerns from both users and advertisers that Twitter continues to be able to monitor who and what appears on its platform. The sweeping layoffs come as the company’s moderation systems should be tested during the midterm elections.
In an appeal to the press, a coalition of civil rights groups and activists called “Stop Poisoning Twitter” has called for a global moratorium on advertising in light of Friday’s mass layoffs.
Some large companies, such as General Mills, Pfizer, and General Motors, have claimed to have suspended ads on the platform.
“With today’s mass layoffs, it’s clear Musk’s actions betray his words,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-executive director of the Free Press Group.
Musk himself tweeted that the platform had already seen a “huge drop” in ad revenue due to pressure from civic groups on Twitter, saying it was “trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Later Friday, Musk acknowledged the mass layoffs, tweeting, “There is no choice when the company loses more than $ 4 million a day,” adding that “all off-duty people have been offered a termination offer. which is a 50% increase in the legal requirement.
One of the people fired was Michelle Austin, the company’s former director of public policy and elections now in the United States and Canada.
Austin tweeted that she was responsible for helping drive policy for the 2022 US midterm election on the platform and tweeted on Friday, “I was responsible for social impact work in both countries.”
