“Good Twitter…it’s been real, and it’s been fun. But the ending wasn’t really fun,” a former employee of the company’s Global Wellness team wrote last night. He was one of approximately 3,700 of the company’s approximately 7,500 employees. to be fired by new owner Elon Musk this week.
Others offered revealing pop culture references.
“Have the red weddings started? an employee wrote on Slack, according the New York Times, minutes before the company sent an email announcing layoffs.
Former employees have reported different language in the notices sent to them. Some samples:
- “We recognize that this will impact a number of people who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success in the future.”
- “…we are writing to let you know that your role at Twitter has been identified as potentially impacted or at risk of termination.”
- “During this time, you will be on a non-working notice period and your access to Twitter systems will be disabled.”
Many outgoing employees were notified by email. Or, as one put it, “The official (and very dehumanizing) layoff email has been received.” Other employees were simply locked out of the system and had to assume that their services were no longer needed.
“Looks like I’m unemployed y’all. Just remotely logged out of my work laptop and deleted it from Slack,” one wrote.
Twitter has also locked all employees, whether fired or not, out of its offices.
“To help ensure the safety of every employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data,” the notice read, “our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended.”
Employees in New York, California, and the company’s hub in Dublin, Ireland were affected.
The seemingly large Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team lost about 20 people, or the entire workforce, according to former member Joan Deitchman.
“Yes, the team is gone,” she wrote last night. “The team that researched and pushed for algorithmic transparency and algorithmic choice. The team that studied algorithmic amplification. The team that invented and built ethical AI tools and methodologies. All of that is gone.
Others made redundant include the company’s global social media and editorial manager and his 17-person team, Twitter’s global culture and community manager and its US creators content manager. Other relevant departments include community, learning design, entertainment partnerships, engineering, iOS development, global wellbeing, and global communications.
See a selection of employee announcements and comments below.