Even employees who kept their complaints internally weren’t safe from the ax
Elon Musk has fired a group of Twitter engineers, some of whom posted critical comments, according to a report.
As many as 20 engineers were let go, one person familiar with the situation told NBC News.
“Looks like I just got fired for ****posting too,” one ex-engineer at Twitter said in a tweet.
Another ex-Twitter employee – who was laid off in the first major round of layoffs two weeks ago – said the latest firing emails were sent around 4:30 a.m. ET Tuesday to “anyone who snarkposted about [Musk] in one of the company Slack channels or on Twitter in the last 24 hours,” according to NBC News.
Recently, Musk, Twitter’s CEO and sole director, sent a company-wide email giving the social media giant’s workforce an ultimatum: commit to “long hours” or leave the San Francisco-based company.
“If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below,” Musk continued. “Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance. Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”
The development comes on the heels of Musk laying off half of the company’s workforce within a day’s notice. Roughly 3,700 employees were to be laid off, Bloomberg reported. Musk, who officially took over Twitter on Oct. 27, previously told prospective investors that he plans to cut nearly 75% of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, The Washington Post reported.
Shortly after the layoffs, Twitter started reaching out to dozens of them and asking them to come back.
However, five Twitter employees have sued the company for not complying with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, a federal law requiring a 60-day notice for mass layoffs at businesses with 100 or more employees unless they are caused by natural disasters or “business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable.” Under the law, the term “mass layoff” can be defined by loss of employment for at least 33% of the workforce, which seems to apply in this case.
Currently, there are too many variables to determine whether Twitter has actually violated the WARN Act, according to Rafael Nendel-Flores, a California-based labor and employment lawyer at international law firm Clark Hill.
Musk has already cleaned house of previous leadership, firing CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde, chief of legal affairs and policy, reported Reuters. Musk, who now refers to himself as the “Chief Twit,” accused the three of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.
