Elon Musk get them back: Twitter boss backtracks on job cuts, blue checks

Twitter Inc is heading into its second full work week under Elon Musk, with half its workforce, mounting losses and unexpected reversals to its plans.

The social media company laid off close to 3,700 people on Friday, only to reach out soon thereafter to dozens of employees it decided were fired in error or too essential to the changes the billionaire businessman wants to make. 

Another of Musk’s key early goals — adding verification check marks for members of its monthly subscription service — is being delayed until Wednesday to avoid potential chaos during the US midterm elections.

The whiplash events, as described by people familiar with the situation or in an internal company memo posted on Slack, follow Musk’s acknowledgment in a tweet that the company he and well-heeled partners bought for $44bn (about R782bn) is losing $4m (about R71m) a day.

Twitter lopped its workforce to trim costs after Musk’s acquisition, which closed in late October. Many employees learnt they had lost their jobs after their access to companywide systems such as email and Slack were suspended. The requests for employees to return demonstrates how rushed and chaotic the process was.

A Twitter spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for comment. The company's plan to hire back workers was reported by Platformer.

“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4m/day,” Musk tweeted on Friday.

Some regions were hit harder than others. The company fired more than 90% of its staff in India at the weekend, severely depleting its engineering and product workforce, people familiar with the matter said. The cuts left the company with about a dozen staff in the growth market, they added. 

Meta Platforms Inc, which is also struggling to contain costs after investing heavily in its metaverse project, may announce significant job cuts this week, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the plans. Layoffs at the Facebook owner, which are expected to affect thousands of workers, could begin as soon as Wednesday, the newspaper said.

Twitter has close to 3,700 employees remaining, according to those familiar with the matter. Musk is pushing those who remain to move quickly in shipping new features and in some cases employees have even slept at the office to meet new deadlines.

Twitter has said it’s rolling out new features to its Twitter Blue subscription plan, offering a verification check mark for any user who pays the monthly fee. The company also said it will soon launch other features, including half the ads, the ability to post longer videos and get priority ranking in replies, mentions and searches.

Twitter will issue the new blue verification check marks to users who pay $7.99 (about R142) a month for the service starting on Wednesday, according to an internal company message posted on Slack. The company previously planned to roll out the subscription feature on Monday, the day before the election. 

“Widespread verification will democratise journalism and empower the voice of the people,” Musk tweeted. 

The company received internal and external feedback that the verification process for its Twitter Blue programme could be ripe for abuse, according to a person who asked not to be identified. That raised concerns that candidates and other political actors might be impersonated on the site in the days before the US polls.

Late on Sunday Musk said Twitter would ban accounts that impersonate others after several high-profile users changed their names and pictures to match the billionaire. Any name change will cause a temporary loss of a verified check mark.

— With assistance from Sankalp Phartiyal.

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