Australia’s Twitter lead and editorial curator has shared an ominous sign of Elon Musk’s global staff purge at the social media firm.
Sunrise host Edwina Bartholomew’s husband, Neil Varcoe, revealed he was logged out of the TwitterAU team’s Slack on Friday.
‘I was just logged out of Slack,’ he wrote, alongside a salute emoji in an apparent farewell to the company.
He received several responses, with some Twitter users wishing him ‘good luck’ before he deleted the message.
Billionaire and Twitter CEO Elon Musk told confidants he planned to slash half of Twitter’s worldwide workforce to cut costs at the social media platform, which he acquired for $US44 billion ($70 billion) last month.
Roughly 40 employees at the Sydney office have been locked out of their account while they anxiously await an email which will notify them on whether they still have a job.
Sydney staff will be informed at 1am on Saturday, while staff in the United States will be made aware of their job status on Friday at 9am.
Australia’s Twitter boss Neil Varcoe (pictured with wife Edwina Bartholomew) revealed he was logged out of the TwitterAU teams’ slack on Friday
The since deleted Twitter post received a number of comments wishing Varcoe ‘good luck’
‘In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,’ the internal email read.
‘We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.’
The email then revealed: ‘By 9am PST on Friday November 4th (1am Saturday morning AEDT), everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter.’
Employees who keep their positions will have the email sent to their Twitter address.
Those who have been sacked will receive the next steps about their termination via their personal email address.
The memo added that all offices would be temporarily closed and access suspended ‘to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data’.
Twitter had a global workforce of some 7,500 employees at the end of 2021, and Musk reportedly plans to lay off up to half of them.
Twitter CEO and Billionaire Elon Musk (pictured) told confidants he planned to slash half of Twitter’s 7,500 worldwide workforce to cut costs at the social media platform
Employees at Twitter’s Australian office (pictured) will find out on Saturday at 1am if they keep their job after Elon Musk’s recent takeover
The notification of layoffs caps off a week of high-level purges by Musk, as he demanded deep cost cuts and imposed an aggressive new work ethic across the social media company.
He had already cleared out the company’s senior ranks, firing its chief executive and top finance and legal executives. Others, including those sitting atop the company’s advertising, marketing, and human resources divisions, departed throughout the past week.
Prior to buying the platform, Musk tweeted that the company under his ownership ‘will be super focused on hardcore software engineering, design, infosec & server hardware.’
Last week he lamented in a tweet that ‘there seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding.’
The layoffs, which were long expected, have chilled Twitter’s famously open corporate culture that has been revered by its employees.
An email was sent to all full-time Twitter staff worldwide to announce that there would be massive lay-offs (pictured)
Musk’s first week as Twitter’s owner was marked by chaos and uncertainty. Two company-wide meetings were scheduled, only to be cancelled hours later.
Managers have been forbidden from calling team meetings or communicating directly with staff, one senior Twitter employee said, adding that they were being monitored.
‘It feels like we’re working among the Gestapo,’ they said.
Musk has also directed Twitter Inc’s teams to find up to $1 billion in annual infrastructure cost savings, according to two sources familiar with the matter and an internal Slack message reviewed by Reuters.
Musk faces threats to Twitter’s revenue as a growing number of companies pause their advertising on the platform over concerns about whether it will remain ‘safe’ for brands.
Last week, General Motors announced it had ‘temporarily paused’ all paid advertising on Twitter with Audi and General Mills – which makes Pillsbury, betty Crocker and Häagen-Dazs – following suit.
Oreo-maker Mondelez International and pharmaceutical giant Pfizer have both paused their Twitter ad spending as well, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
All Twitter offices would be temporarily closed and access suspended ‘to help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data’ (pictured, Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California)
Musk took to Twitter with a poll asking users whether advertisers should support freedom of speech or ‘political correctness’
Musk last week promised advertisers he would keep Twitter from turning into a ‘free-for-all hellscape’ due to concerns the social media site will become inundated with the voices of bigots and conspiracy theorists.
He is now scrambling to convince advertisers that he will uphold the commitment.
Some advertisers have reportedly vowed to boycott Twitter for good if former president Donald Trump is allowed to return. Musk said on Wednesday it would be several weeks before a process is in place to reinstate banned accounts.
On Wednesday night, Musk asked users whether advertisers should support freedom of speech or ‘political correctness’.
More than two million users voted in the poll with nearly 80 per cent answering ‘freedom of speech’.
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