Twitter slashes 10% of workforce in new layoff salvo: Report

NEW YORK (Agencies): Twitter has laid off at least 200 employees, or 10% of its workforce, according to The New York Times, in its latest round of job cuts since Elon Musk took over the microblogging site last October.

The layoffs on Saturday night impacted product managers, data scientists and engineers who worked on machine learning and site reliability, which helps keep Twitter’s various features online, the U.S. daily reported late on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The company has a headcount of about 2,300 active employees, according to Musk last month.

The latest job cuts follow a mass layoff in early November, when Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees in a cost-cutting measure by Musk, who had acquired the company for $44 billion.

Musk said in November that the service was experiencing a “massive drop in revenue” as advertisers pulled spending amid concerns about content moderation.

Twitter recently started sharing revenue from advertisements with some of its content creators.

Earlier in the day, The Information reported that the social media platform laid off dozens of employees on Saturday, aiming to offset a plunge in revenue.

Esther Crawford, in charge of the social network’s product development, was one of the latest employees let go, according to the Times.

Crawford was among the few remaining Twitter executives from before its October acquisition by Musk who had not resigned or been fired.

Head of the new Twitter Blue verification program, she had been a staunch supporter of Musk and the company, going so far as to retweet a photo of herself sleeping in a sleeping bag at her workplace.

“The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake,” she wrote on Twitter.

“Those who jeer & mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos.”

Other giants in the once-unassailable tech sector – including Amazon, Alphabet and Meta – have announced thousands of layoffs in the past year.

The firings came after a major hiring spree in the tech industry when the companies scrambled to meet skyrocketing demand for their products as people went online for work, shopping and entertainment during the coronavirus pandemic.