Twitter laid off at least 200 employees, 10% of its workforce, according to The New York Times, as job cuts continue at US technology giants.
This new round of layoffs includes product managers, “big data” experts and engineers who work on machine learning, artificial intelligence, and platform reliability, the American newspaper reported on Sunday.
Contacted by AFP, Twitter did not immediately confirm the reports. On the sidelines, Esther Crawford, in charge of product development for the social network, was one of the fired employees, according to the Times.
Crawford was one of the few executives working at Twitter before it was acquired by tycoon Elon Musk in October who had not resigned or been fired.
Head of the firm’s new verification program, Twitter Blue, Crawford had been a staunch supporter of Musk and the company, going so far as to retweet a photo of herself sleeping in a sleeping bag at her workplace.
“The worst thing you could think when you see me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake,” he wrote online Sunday night.
“Today is your last day of work”
For its part, the Wall Street Journal reported on an employee who was told by email last Saturday that his job had been eliminated. “Today is your last day of work for the company,” the email stated.
The company had about 2,300 employees in January, according to Musk. Before the $44 billion acquisition by the Tesla boss, it had more than 7,000.
There have been numerous layoffs in the US tech sector in recent months. In addition to Twitter, Microsoft, Amazon, Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Facebook company Meta have also cut thousands of jobs.
During the pandemic, some of these companies had experienced high growth rates and created jobs as a result. When sales fell again after the pandemic, they cut many of these jobs again.
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