Twitter layoffs hit Canadian office, at least two of the country’s top staff gone
Posted November 4, 2022 6:15 am.
Last Updated November 4, 2022 10:30 am.
Just a week after purchasing the social media platform, billionaire Elon Musk has begun his plans to layoff half of Twitter’s employees.
The company temporarily closed their offices on Friday and an email sent to staff advised them they would be made aware of the staff cuts on Friday morning.
Several employees tweeted early Friday that they had already lost access to their work accounts.
“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” reads an email from the company obtained by multiple media outlets.
The email advised employees would find out by 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time if they had been laid off. It did not make mention of how many employees would lose their jobs.
The layoffs hit the company’s Canadian office with its two most senior leaders announcing they were part of the cuts.
Paul Burns, managing director of the company’s Canadian operations, and Michele Austin, Twitter’s director of public policy for the U.S. and Canada, announced their departures on social media Friday.
“It’s been a wild last 4.5 years,” said Burns on Twitter.
“To the people, friends, partners and tweeps that made this place so special, thank you for all the adventures. Love you all so much.”
Burns joined the company in 2018, taking on the business’s top job in Canada and in recent years oversaw the creation of its first Canadian engineering hub.
It’s been a wild last 4.5 years. To the people, friends, partners, and tweeps that make this place so special. Thank you for all the adventures. Love you all so much ????????????#LoveWhereYouWorked
— Paul Burns (@paulburns) November 4, 2022
Austin has been with Twitter just as long and served in a high-profile role that saw her representing the company before government committees and helping shape election policies.
Austin was “heartbroken” to announce her layoff.
“It’s been the best, craziest, most rewarding five-year ride of my career,” she wrote on LinkedIn.
“I loved every single minute of it.”
https://twitter.com/_MicheleAustin/status/1588501094527012864
Related:
Musk has already fired top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and removed the company’s board of directors and installed himself as the sole board member,
The firings are expected to hit the sales, safety, marketing, product engineering, and legal departments. It’s not clear if the layoffs will have any impact on the user experience.
A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Twitter over Musk’s plans. The employees say the company is firing the workers without enough notice, violating a federal and state law.
As of Thursday, Musk and Twitter had given no public notice of the coming layoffs. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification statute requires employers with at least 100 workers to disclose layoffs involving 500 or more employees, regardless of whether a company is publicly traded or privately held.
The company had around 7,500 employees prior to Musk taking over.
With files from The Associated Press
