Twitter chief Musk sacks nearly whole India employees

The social media platform now has fewer than 10 individuals left in India, in line with two individuals conscious of the developments. Twitter used to have between 230 and 250 workers within the nation, two individuals mentioned.

The firm has roughly 23.6 million customers in India, in line with Statista.com. In a counterclaim filed on the court docket in Delaware throughout the battle for Twitter’s takeover, Musk claimed that India is the corporate’s third-largest market.

Impacted workers have misplaced entry to Twitter’s inner methods like Slack, emails and laptops.

A lawyer near the corporate mentioned some workers selected to place of their papers in anticipation of the layoffs. The firm additionally fired a number of workers in September.

Another individual near the corporate confirmed that individuals from Twitter’s curation staff, which curates content material for the Twitter Moments characteristic, have been let go.

Other groups affected embody communications, international content material partnerships, gross sales and advert income. All or not less than 50% of workers in these groups have been fired.

Notably, the engineering and product groups have been downsized, though Twitter introduced plans to broaden its engineering staff in India which works out of Bengaluru, as just lately as in April 2021.

It had employed ex-Uber govt Apurva Dalal as director of engineering as a part of the plan.

A former worker, among the many ones laid off, mentioned that some contractual workers have been retained.

To make sure, Twitter’s groups concerned within the functioning of its India operations work throughout continents, so some members weren’t instantly primarily based in India.

Within India, Twitter has three places of work—in Bengaluru, Gurugram and Mumbai.

Three individuals confirmed that two workers within the public coverage staff have been retained, whereas a fourth mentioned Twitter additionally held on to some workers from gross sales. Some contractors who weren’t on full-time Twitter roles have additionally been retained, the ex-employee cited above mentioned.

Employees have been informed that the small print of the following steps, together with severance packages and return of firm belongings, can be communicated over the following few days.

Most workers anticipate two months’ pay as severance, although this may differ primarily based on an individual’s employment phrases.

Reuters reported that Musk had directed Twitter Inc.’s groups to chop $1 billion in infrastructure prices. According to FY21 filings with the registrar of corporations (RoC) by Twitter, the corporate accrued ₹43.25 crore in “worker profit bills”.

The RoC filings were sourced from the business research platform Tofler.

FY22 numbers weren’t available at press time.

The layoffs are part of a global downsizing drive that Musk started after taking charge of the company.

Twitter employees globally have even started a hashtag—#OneTeam—on the platform to show solidarity with each other and announce their layoffs. The same hashtag is also racking up posts on the professional networking platform LinkedIn.

“Just got laid off. Bird App, it was an absolute honour, the greatest privilege ever to be a part of this team, this culture,” tweeted Yash Agarwal, who was a part of the general public coverage staff on the firm earlier.

“It’s been an honour to be part of this staff and this organisation. It provides me immense gratitude to have the ability to name you of us my colleagues and my pals. It’s been an incredible trip,” wrote Shifalika Yogi, whose profile indicates that she was a senior client account manager at Twitter.

The first round of layoffs at Twitter started on Friday following a formal email sent on Thursday that reportedly asked workers worldwide to stay at home and wait for another email that would update them about their job status.

“In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce,” mentioned the primary electronic mail, Reuters reported on Friday.

Twitter employed round 7,500 individuals globally as of December 2021, up from 5,500 within the earlier 12 months, in line with a July report by Statista.

Reports from Reuters and Bloomberg on Thursday had mentioned Musk plans to slash half of the workforce on the agency.

After the completion of the $44 billion deal final week, Musk fired prime Twitter executives, together with chief govt officer Parag Agrawal and chief monetary officer Ned Segal, together with authorized and coverage head Vijaya Gadde.

Several prime executives, together with chief advertising officer Leslie Berland, left the corporate after the firing of prime executives.

Abhijit Ahaskar, Reuters and Bloomberg contributed to the story.

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