Twitter CEO Elon Musk laid off 10% of Twitter’s workforce over the weekend, impacting roughly 200 employees despite saying there won't be any more layoffs just last year.
The layoffs were reported to start Saturday night, with most employees finding out by losing access to their emails the following day.
Esther Crawford, Director of Product Management and Head of Twitter Blue, was one of the workers who found out she would be laid off last Sunday.
Crawford, who worked on Twitter Blue and Spaces, went “all-in” and had avidly defended Musk since his reign on Twitter, shared her thoughts regarding the layoff in a tweet.
“The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake. Those who jeer & mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos,” she wrote.
The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake. Those who jeer & mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos. 💙
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) February 27, 2023
According to reports, the engineering, advertising and product teams were among the sectors most affected by the recent layoffs.
Just last Friday, employees reported losing access to Slack, the app hosting important chats and files needed to work, with many taking several days off. They were also told that the reason to this was “routine maintenance,” but Slack employees were quick to deny this claim.
Musk’s latest firing spree comes after the CEO announced plans to stabilize the company before passing on his CEO role by the end of 2023.
From a total headcount of about 7,500 last October, Twitter’s workforce currently stands at an estimated 1,800 employees.
