Elon Musk fires around 5,000 temporary Twitter workers

Elon Musk continues to be the bogeyman of the Twitter workforce. The new boss of the short message service has once again revealed his unpredictability. On Sunday, he laid off between 4,400 and 5,500 temporary workers and freelancers without prior notice.

Elon Musk fires around 5,000 freelancers and temporary workers on Twitter

Since Elon Musk took over the short message service Twitter for around 44 billion US dollars, there has hardly been a day without news from the company. The employees in particular can no longer spend a peaceful night.

The new company boss has now laid off between 4,400 and 5,500 freelancers and temporary workers. This was reported by the very well-informed social media journalist Casey Newton in a tweet on Sunday, November 13, 2022.

Layoffs without notice, even management without information

If the layoffs weren’t unpleasant enough per se, the way the process is handled is the proverbial crowning glory.

There was no warning for the approximately 5,000 freelancers and temporary workers that the cooperation with them would be terminated. They found out about their termination because their login data to the company servers no longer worked.

Update: company sources tell me that yesterday Twitter eliminated ~4,400 of its ~5,500 contract employees, with cuts expected to have significant impact on content moderation and the core infrastructure services that keep the site up and running.

People inside are stunned.

— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 13, 2022

And even the superiors of the dismissed were not informed about this step. Instead, executives learned the news from the fired employees and not through a letter from Elon Musk.

Security and PR: These departments are particularly hard hit by the wave of layoffs

The layoffs of freelancers and temporary workers do not only affect the USA. Former contract employees are affected around the world. For example, there are numerous reports from India.

Casey Newton writes that 15 percent of the trust and security team will be affected by the layoffs. This seems a bit bizarre given that Elon Musk placed so much emphasis on security and trustworthiness on his current platform in the takeover hiccup.

The Intelligence Service CNBC in turn, learned that Twitter had fired all of its internal communications. The information comes from the affected employees themselves.

Elon Musk is not a worker friend

Ultimately, thousands of employees have no choice but to look for a new job. Just a week ago, thousands of regular Twitter employees had also received an automated resignation letter.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk continues to tweet. He justifies his radical and less than considerate action by saying that Twitter makes $4 million in losses every day.

He also emphasizes that he will continue to pay the salary to all those who have been fired for three months. That is twice as much as required by law. It is doubtful whether the image of the new Twitter boss will really improve as a result.

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