'No choice', says Elon Musk as he justifies massive layoffs at Twitter

Amid massive layoffs at Twitter across the world including in India and the subsequent backlash the microblogging sites new owner Elon Musk on Saturday justified the move saying there was no choice when the company was losing millions of dollars dailyThe company posted a net loss of USD 270 million in the second quarter ended June 30 2022 compared to a profit of USD 66 million in the same period a year agoRegarding Twitters reduction in force unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over 4Mday Musk tweetedEveryone exited was offered 3 months of severance which is 50 per cent more than legally required he addedHundreds of employees were handed the pink slips at Twitter on Friday as Musk 51 started overhauling the social media platform which he bought for a whopping USD 44 billion late last monthAlso read Elon Musks Twitter Industry experts share views on quick workculture transformationIn a letter to employees obtained by multiple media outlets on Friday the company said employees would find out by 9 am Pacific Standard Time if they had been laid off The email did not say how many people would lose their jobsSome employees tweeted early Friday that they had already lost access to their work accountsTwitter has also fired the majority of its over 200 employees in India Sources said the layoffs are across engineering sales and marketing and communications teamsHowever there is no clarity yet on the severance package to be paid to employees laid off in IndiaThe entire marketing and communications department in India has been sacked the sources saidMusk has blamed activists for a significant drop in the companys revenuesTwitter has had a massive drop in revenue due to activist groups pressuring advertisers even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists Extremely messed up Theyre trying to destroy free speech in America Musk tweeted on FridayTwitters roughly 7500 employees have been expecting layoffs since Musk took the helm of the company After he completed the acquisition of Twitter Musk ousted CEO Parag Agrawal legal executive Vijaya Gadde Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and General Counsel Sean EdgettHe also removed the companys board of directors and installed himself as the sole board memberMusk has also announced Twitter will charge USD 8 around Rs 660 per month from verified blue tick accounts triggering intense debate on the social media platformThe firm is reportedly laying off 3738 people out of its total headcount of 7500 across the globeMeanwhile several Twitter employees on Thursday night filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Twitter is in violation of the federal and California WorkerAdjustment and Retraining Notification Act WARN Act after laying off some employees already CNN reportedThe WARN Act requires that an employer with more than 100 employees must provide 60 days advance written notice prior to a mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employmentElon Musk the richest man in the world has made clear that he believes complying with federal labour laws is trivial Attorney Shannon LissRiordan who filed the lawsuit said in a statement to CNNWe have filed this federal complaint to ensure that Twitter be held accountable to our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly signing away their rightsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever