Elon Musk’s Twitter Fires 80% of Contract Workers

Elon Musk’s Twitter has slashed its contract workforce by 80 percent with none of the company’s internal teams being notified in advance.

CNBC reports that according to internal communications from full-time Twitter employees sent to outlet, more than 4,000 contract workers had their jobs terminated this weekend after losing access to Slack and other work systems. According to Platformer, which first reported on the terminations, about 4,400 of the 5,500 Twitter contractors were fired.

Twitter used contractors based in various locations, including India. Current Twitter employees, who wished to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, said they were not aware that the contractors that they were working with had been terminated.

According to these employees, Twitter has dismissed its internal communications team. Employees have joked that media organizations covering the company, they say, are now filling that role.

Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform on October 28 already resulted in the elimination of half of its workforce. Now, the cancellation of contractor work would add to the reduction.

According to information given to the SEC in June 2013, shortly before Twitter went public, it had around 2,000 employees. By the end of 2021, the firm said it had more than 7,500 full-time workers.

On November 4, Musk addressed the layoffs and said: “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.” Despite his assurances, some employees have filed a lawsuit against the company over the layoffs.

Musk confirmed to remaining Twitter employees that he has sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares in order to “save” Twitter. It is uncertain whether Musk will continue to sell Tesla shares to further cut down on his Twitter debt.

Read more at CNBC here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan