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Elon Musk reportedly plans to cut 75% of Twitter (TWTR) workforce

Twitter has told its employees that there are no plans for layoffs, but reports of Musk's plans once the acquisition goes through suggest otherwise.

TJ Denzer

October 21, 2022 10:50 AM

Image via Carina Johansen/Reuters

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It must be a nerve-wracking time to be a Twitter employee right now. Elon Musk’s impending acquisition has left a lot of uncertainty as to the future of employees at the company. What happens once the acquisition is done remains to be seen, for better or worse, but Musk himself seems to be giving dreary forecasts of what’s ahead. Reportedly, the Tesla CEO plans to cut around 75 percent of nearly 7,500 workforce. Twitter itself has said there are no such plans for layoffs in the foreseeable future.

These conflicting reports come out of Washington Post, who reported on Musk’s alleged intentions for a layoff, as well as Reuters, who shared Twitter’s contrary response on the matter. According to internal documents and interviews by the Washington Post, Musk allegedly told investors that he planned to cut about 75 percent of the workforce. These reports pushed Twitter to respond on the matter.  Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett reportedly sent out an email to clarify that there were no plans for mass layoffs in Twitter’s foreseeable future.

Musk’s supposed plans to fire a huge percent of Twitter’s workforce understandably serves to make employees nervous. This is likely compounded by previous engagement of Elon Musk with Twitter employees in which he shared that the company needs to layoff staff to “get healthy.” In an all-hands meeting to address concerns, Musk also continued sentiments that the platform has a bot problem and he doesn’t believe it’s being handled properly (in between diatribes about aliens).

Twitter is unmistakably trying to put its employees at ease. However, as October 28 looms and Elon Musk comes up against a deadline to finish acquisition of Twitter or face another court date in November, it feels like things are bound to get messier for the social media platform and its staff in the near future.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.