Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, has defended the ongoing mass layoffs at the microblogging firm.
Thousands of Twitter employees were ordered to stay home Friday to await a bracing round of layoffs that could see half of the payroll axed as new owner Elon Musk launches his major company overhaul on Friday.
A company-wide email seen by AFP said Twitter employees will receive word on their future at the company via email at the start of business Friday, California time.
Some affected staff took to Twitter to vent their frustration about exiting their job at one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic companies.
But breaking the silence on the issue that has been trending, Musk said Twitter has been losing $4 million per day because of its large workforce.
According to him, this left the company with no choice but to let some people go.
Musk noted that everyone affected by the layoffs was given three months of severance packages, which is 50% higher than legally required.
He said, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone who exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.”
Musk has been pushing to find ways to pay for the mammoth $44 billion deal for which he took billions of dollars in debt and sold $15.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla, his electric car company.
According to company sources, Musk’s teams were imposing a rigorous pace on the remaining employees, bringing in Tesla developers to supervise the work of Twitter workers.
Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief, is said to owe $1 billion in annual interest alone to pay for a deal he tried to wiggle out of almost as soon as he made it in April.
