United States: Only a week after their sensational acquisition, Twitter fired half of its 7,500-person workforce as the company's new owner, Elon Musk, begins a broad restructuring of the struggling company.

According to an internal memo obtained by Agence France-Presse, "around 50%" of employees were affected and will immediately lose access to the company's computers and email.

Once one of Silicon Valley's most recognizable companies showed its employees the door, they used Twitter to express their anger or disbelief and bid farewell to the business.

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"I woke up when I woke up to the news that my employment with Twitter was ending. It broke my heart. I'm in denial," said Michelle Austin, Twitter's director of public policy for the US and Canada.

Before the layoffs, Twitter restricted access to all of its locations and told employees to stay at home while they waited for word on their futures with the company.

The deal is part of Musk's effort to find financing for the US$44 billion deal, for which he sold Tesla shares worth US$15.5 billion and took on billions of dollars in debt.

Following his massive buyout, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is looking at new revenue streams for Twitter, including the notion of charging users US$8 per month for verified accounts.

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The action would help Twitter deal with the prospect of losing advertisers, which are the company's primary source of income, after many of the world's top brands learned of Musk's famous contempt for content controls. Your ad purchase has been postponed.

The shaky businessman on Friday expressed regret for the "huge drop in revenue" on Twitter, attributing it to "activist groups" who were pressuring advertisers.

We made every effort to pacify the workers. Absolutely fucked! They want to throttle freedom of expression in America, he continued.
This appears to be a reference to Musk's recent meeting with civil rights organizations, where he voiced concern that Twitter would spread a wave of hate speech a week before the US midterm election.

Musk promised that Twitter would not turn into a "free-for-all hell" in an effort to assuage people's fears, but his announcement was followed soon by a tweet about an attack on the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. A frivolous conspiracy theory was spread in ,

One of the most powerful communication systems in the world is being destroyed in real time. According to Accountable Tech executive director Nicole Gill, Elon Musk is a volatile billionaire who is dangerously unfit to lead the platform.

She was a member of a group of 60 rights organizations that on Friday called for a boycott of advertisers on the Musk-owned platform.

“Elon Musk has shown he is unable to maintain the brand protection he has on Twitter. According to Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, it is time to verify, not build trust.

Although very popular with celebrities and opinion leaders, the California-based business has long struggled to turn a profit and has lagged behind Facebook, Instagram and TikTok in terms of user growth.

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As Musk finalized his acquisition late last week and prepared to immediately dissolve his board and sack its chief executive and top managers, Twitter employees are preparing for just such bad news.

Five Twitter employees, who had already been laid off, filed a class action lawsuit against the company late Thursday, alleging they had not received the legally required 60-day notice period.

The US Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (Warning) Act, which gives employees the right to advance notice in situations of mass layoffs or plant closures, is cited in the lawsuit.