According to a Bloomberg report, some of those who were asked to return were accidentally fired. Some were shown the door before new management realized their work might be necessary to build the new features for the short-lived electronic platform Musk wants. After laying off half the company on Friday, a select number of ex-Twitter employees are being asked to return to their jobs — some reportedly fired in error Musk has previously said there is no choice but to impose massive layoffs as the company loses hundreds of millions of dollars each year and needs a financial overhaul In a move widely expected for weeks, Twitter cut nearly 3,700 email jobs on Friday. Many employees learned their positions had been terminated after their access to company systems such as Slack and email was abruptly cut off. On Friday night, Musk tweeted: “unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4 million/day.” “All those who left were offered 3 months severance, which is 50% more than required by law,” he wrote. Musk had previously hinted at a determination to fix the company’s financial health that would, but surely, involve massive layoffs. The company still employs about 3,700 people. Those that remain are being pushed by Musk to work quickly to develop and implement new capabilities. There have been reports of employees sleeping in the office – something Musk himself has been known to do – in order to meet newly imposed deadlines.
The firing and rehiring frenzy comes amid a slew of new features the bird app plans to roll out soon — including its blue-check membership program Change is coming fast and furious as the world’s richest man took over as CEO of Twitter. His deal to buy the company for a whopping $44 billion closed in late October. Over the weekend, Twitter launched its new Twitter Blue subscription plan, which offers the verification check mark for any user willing to pay more than $8 a month. The company — mostly via Musk’s personal account — said it will soon roll out additional new features, including reduced ads, the ability to post longer videos, and a feature that lets users get prioritized rankings in answers, reports and searches. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the company would delay changes to the blue check program until after Tuesday’s midterm elections. Workers reportedly made the point that any abrupt change could be used to create chaos on the site in the days leading up to the election. According to Silicon Valley reporter Casey Newton, employees who remained in the Twitter Slack channel after Friday were asked over the weekend to nominate “names and thoughts” of former employees who could still be potentially useful to the company. Twitter has yet to comment on its decision to reinstate some of the people released on Friday. Musk is quickly implementing a major change at Twitter — though the speed of that change may be hampered by his decision to lay off half the company’s workforce In recent days, Musk’s tweets have been half the story coming out of Twitter headquarters, with the billionaire publicly pondering ways to change the product and poking fun at some of his high-profile critics. After criticism from notable progressives, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and actor Mark Ruffalo, Musk tweeted a “hot shot.” “Not everything AOC says is 100% accurate,” he wrote — responding to a sentiment from Ruffalo. A day earlier, Ruffalo had tweeted: “Elon. Please – for the love of decency – get off Twitter, hand the keys to someone who does this real work, and get on with running Tesla and SpaceX. “You’re destroying your credibility. It’s just not a good look,” he added. On Saturday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk hit back at Mark Ruffalo on Twitter, telling the actor not to believe “everything AOC says.” Also over the weekend, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey went online to apologize to current and former Twitter employees. Addressing Musk’s buyout, which he has previously said he supports, he apologized for growing the company “too quickly” and said Twitter employees “will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment.” The co-founder passed on his 18 million shares in the Elon Musk-era company rather than paying out. His shares represent about 2.4 percent of the company. That means he will be one of Twitter’s biggest investors in the company, and contributed about $1 billion to Musk’s $44 billion purchase. During his buyout, Musk almost immediately disbanded Twitter’s board once he bought the company, leaving Dorsey as one of the few shareholders with ties to the previous leadership. It joins Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and the Qatar Investment Authority as major investors. Dorsey faced backlash for his decision to leave Twitter in 2021 to work at payments company Block, formerly known as Square. He first co-founded the company in 2006, was ousted from the top job in 2008 and returned in 2015. The app went public in 2015. He addressed the ill-wishers in a follow-up tweet: “I am grateful and love everyone who has ever worked at Twitter. I don’t expect it to be mutual right now… or ever… and I understand. In court, Dorsey revealed that he contacted Musk and discussed the direction of the company. “A new platform is needed. It can’t be a company. That’s why I left,” he texted Musk. When Musk asked him what the new model should look like, Dorsey replied that Twitter “should never have been the company” and that was the “original sin.” “I think it’s also worth trying to move Twitter in a better direction and do something new that’s decentralized,” he said. “Elon is the only solution I trust,” Dorsey tweeted in April 2022. “I trust his mission to expand the light of consciousness.”
