By Martyn Landi, PA Technology Correspondent
Twitter is expected to inform staff on Friday whether they are to be dismissed as part of job cuts in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover.
There have been suggestions that as many as half of the social media giant’s global workforce could be cut.
Twitter employs more than 7,500 people around the world.
The company has a significant presence in Ireland. Accounts show the tech firm employed less than 200 people prior to the pandemic, but this increased to 243 in 2020. Today Twitter employs an estimated 500 people at offices in Dublin.
Mr Musk is thought to want to drastically reduce costs at the company after completing his $44 billion (€45 billion) takeover of the platform last week and has since tweeted “we need to pay the bills somehow” in relation to further plans to begin charging a monthly subscription for users to keep their verified blue tick badge.
you get what you pay for
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2022
According to an internal email reportedly sent to staff, the job cuts are “an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path” and action is “unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward”.
Staff have been told that everyone will receive an email by 9am PST (4pm Irish time) on Friday, with those who are affected by the cuts set to receive the message on their personal email address rather than the one associated with their work.
“Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email,” the internal email said.
Some staff working overnight have already claimed to have been logged out of their Twitter laptops and internal messaging systems.
Mr Musk has promised to make sweeping changes at the company and has already removed the entire board, leaving himself as the sole executive, and pledged to change how the site handles content moderation.
He has also suggested allowing banned accounts, including that of former US president Donald Trump, back onto the site.
His plans to overhaul the Twitter Blue subscription service so that it gives users the blue tick verification badge in exchange for a monthly fee is also reportedly set to be introduced later this month.
