Elon Musk says other tech companies should lay off employees like he did at Twitter

Twitter CEO Elon Musk advises tech companies in Silicon Valley to conduct layoffs in the same way he did at Twitter. In a virtual interaction with Wall Street Journal at CEO Councel Summit in London, Musk stated that many people didn't seem to have a lot of value, before he took over the company. Hence, he decided to make the job cuts, resulting in improved productivity.

Musk slashed over 80 per cent of the Twitter staff including its then CEO Parag Agrawal since his he took over the brand in October 2022.

Elon Musk talks about Twitter layoffs

He stated, “There were a lot of people that didn't seem to have a lot of value. I think that's true at many Silicon Valley companies. I think there is the possibility for significant cuts at other companies without affecting their productivity, in fact increasing their productivity."

He spoke about the reason he had to make huge job cuts just after buying Twitter for $44 billion last year. Musk said, “Twitter was in a situation where you'd have a meeting of ten people and one person with an accelerator and nine with a set of brakes."

However, he also said that Twitter will soon start hiring people again.

The Twitter CEO says that the company currently has around 1,500 employees which is “probably a reasonable number.” During Musk's ongoing tenure, Twitter's headcount has been reduced by over 80 per cent, from 7,500 to approximately 1,500 employees. This reduction was part of Musk's strategy to cut costs and steer the company toward profitability.

Back in November 2022, when Twitter staff was rattled by mass layoffs and resignations, Musk sent a memo to its employees explaining how he wants his staff to work. As per a report by Wall Street Journal, the memo said, “We will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” He had even given them an ultimatum to sign a Google form agreeing to become a part of “Twitter 2.0” by 5 pm ET or be terminated. The affected employees were promised to get three months of severance.  

During this time, several employees complained that they are working for over 12 hours and were not being paid for the overtime. Esther Crawford, who was later promoted to be the director of product management at Twitter, was seen sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in her office. However, she also parted ways with the company. 

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