Twitter employees feared Elon Musk would fire “everyone he meets” and were “waiting for the executioner” before the billionaire businessman carried out mass sackings at the social media giant on Friday.
Bruce Daisley, former head of Twitter’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told i “disorientated” employees at the firm had been worried about how they were going to pay the bills if they were sacked as part of the billionaire’s purge following his takeover of the social media giant.
Last week, Mr Musk completed his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter after months of bitter legal disputes between the world’s richest person and the social media firm.
Upon taking control of the company, the billionaire immediately fired a number of senior executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and legal affairs chief Vijaya Gadde.
The company began making mass layoffs on Friday, with staff being notified by email whether they still had a job.
Employees reported on social media that they had been locked out of their accounts, while a letter that was reportedly sent to all staff told them not to come into the office.
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” said the email, which employees have been sharing on social media.
Mr Daisley, who worked at Twitter from 2012 until 2020, said Twitter employees had been expecting layoffs following Mr Musk’s takeover.
Speaking earlier this week before news of the mass layoffs broke, he said: “A lot of people are feeling Musk is firing everyone he meets and so as a consequence of that, people are presented with a dilemma. Most of them don’t have other jobs lined up to go to and so they would hope that the company will be gracious in paying them a settlement if they [go] and so the people that I’ve spoken to are kind of waiting for the executioner really.”
He added: “”They are presuming that they are just waiting for their turn to be fired. So I guess among them the immediate [concern] is they’re worried about their mortgages. They’re worried about their electricity bill. The question of what he does to the platform is a touch abstract at the moment, because they’re just worried about their own wellbeing.”
Philip McCabe, Senior Partner and employment law specialist, McCabe and Co Solicitors, told i what Twitter is doing is “definitely not lawful” if the firm had failed to engage with employees before sacking them.
“In a redundancy situation, the law does say where there’s over a certain number of employees being made redundant, they must consult with the affected employees or their representatives, and importantly, they must inform the Government as well,” he said.
Under UK law a company must consult with employees and inform the Government when it is making over 20 people redundant. If it fails to do so, employees can seek compensation via an employment tribunal and the Government could also choose to take the company to court.
Mr McCabe said it is “quite unusual” for “reputable large employers” to make staff redundant without consultation, however it is not unheard of.
He gave the example of P&O ferries, which sacked over 800 workers without notice earlier this year.
“There’s commercial realities in place and where some employers are incredibly money focused, it can sometimes be better financially for them to take a hit on it, reduce overheads and employee number incredibly quickly and then if somebody brings a claim in a tribunal then they’ll deal with it,” Mr McCabe said.
A Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesperson said: “We are watching what is happening at Twitter with interest. While we cannot comment on the individual cases, we expect companies to treat their employees fairly and our thoughts are with those who have lost their jobs.
“There are clear rules companies must follow when making large numbers of redundancies which includes consulting with staff and notifying the Redundancy Payments Service.”
The word “sacked” trended on Twitter on Friday as employees posted about losing their job, including workers based at the firm’s London headquarters.
James Glynn, a senior curation lead in Twitter’s London office, tweeted: “Going out like this with the most talented, diverse, funny, kind, hard-working and incredible colleagues is truly the greatest honour in all of this.”
Andrew Haigh, former Senior Curation Lead at Twitter, who said he resigned from his role last week, tweeted that Twitter’s curation team had been a victim of the cuts.
The team works with outlets to promote news and stories that unfold on Twitter, providing “moments” and “threads” from responsible media outlets, companies and personalities, as well contextualisation to trends. The team aims to provide factual context, impartiality, and follows certain standards, meaning Twitter users may now find it more difficult to track down such content.
i has approached Twitter for comment.
Maurice Saatchi: I used to adore capitalism – then I had lunch with Margaret Thatcher