Confusion and Frustration Reign as Elon Musk Cuts Half of Twitter’s Staff

The ax didn't fall smoothly when it came down.

When email accounts were shut off, it was the first sign that some of the company's 7,500 employees had been laid off. They didn't get an official word about being terminated, but some of their slack accounts still worked. Employees in Ireland and Britain were kept up late waiting for the San Francisco headquarters to inform them of their jobs. Some people found out they were out of work at night.

According to three people with knowledge of the meeting and internal messages viewed by The New York Times, one worker was locked out of the company's systems during a late-night meeting about a new product.

Many employees are upset on social media. Chris Younie, a member of the partnerships team based in London, found out he had been laid off when he couldn't access his internal systems after midnight.

Mr. Younie commented on the fact that this was happening at 3am. Thank you for the thoughtfulness on the timing front men.

Roughly half of the company's work force, or about 3,700 jobs, had been eliminated, four people with knowledge of the matter said. The engineering and machine learning teams, the trust and safety teams, and the sales and advertising departments were all cut. Rarely have layoffs been made by a single person.

Less than a week after Mr. Musk closed his acquisition of the company, there were layoffs. The actions raised questions about how the world's richest man can carry out his ambitious plans for the social media service, which include new product features, boosting the number of users and finding other revenue streams.

Mr. Musk has taken private the many challenges he faces at the social media site. He took on $13 billion in debt in order to get the deal done. The company has lost money for eight of the past 10 years as the economy slows.

Advertisers who provide 90 percent of the revenue for the platform have paused their spending due to fears over how the site's content might change under Mr. Musk. On Friday, Volkswagen Group joined the boycott. Civil rights groups have warned that a rise in toxic speech is possible if the rules are loosened on social media.

Mr Musk spoke at an investment conference in New York on Friday. He said that the cuts were necessary because of the serious revenue challenges and cost challenges that the company was facing before the deal.

He said that he had tried everything he could to appease the activists and that he had not changed the rules.

The communications team did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Musk did not reply.

Sucher, a professor of management at Harvard University who has studied layoffs for more than a decade, said that the cuts made by the social networking site were among the worst she had seen. She said that it was unusual to see layoffs done so quickly without a detailed explanation.

Ms. Sucher said that the class was a master class in how not to do it. It is a particularly inhumane way to treat people if you tell them you are going to do something in advance.

There are legal challenges from the layoffs. Five former employees of the company filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for not giving them enough notice of the cuts. Companies are required to inform workers of mass layoffs. Although it told U.S. workers they would remain on the payroll for several months as non working employees, it did not do so.

The job cuts were ordered by Mr. Musk after he took ownership of the company. Workers created groups on messaging apps to keep in touch in case of layoffs. Five former and current employees said that some people added each other on the professional networking site.

The layoffs would start on Friday after employees received an email. They were told not to go to the office on Friday.

The email said that the action was needed to ensure the company's success.

Employees used the #One Team and #LoveWhereYouWork to communicate with each other. Some people said that they had been logging out of their work computers.

Access was cut in a number of different ways. Some people received text messages from their colleagues that said they were able to open their email and work apps after logging out of some work apps.

The email about the cuts was sent to some workers in Dublin. "These decisions never come easy and it is with regret that we write to let you know that your role at the company has been identified as potentially impacted or at risk of being redundant," it said.

One worker in the Tokyo office said that they received the same email towards the end of their workday.

Employees were still being called to meetings. Esther Crawford, a project manager, asked people to join a standup meeting at 9:30 pm on Thursday as some layoff notices went out.

She added a broken heart symbol and a link to a video conferencing room to her message, which was seen by The Times. Ms. Crawford works on a product that faces a Nov. 7 deadline if it isn't rolled out by then.

A small group of employees were watching a video conference as Ms. Crawford spoke. Three people with knowledge of the incident said that a member of the team dropped off during the call. The person's access to the network was stopped.

The cuts were deep. The human rights and disability experience teams were cut back. Two people said that the internet technology team had become a skeleton crew. The studio and enforcement teams were also hit.

Two people said that people who worked from home were targets for cuts.

At least nine security guards were patrolling the two buildings that make up the headquarters, pacing around the perimeter and checking the locked doors. The lights above the lobbies were dim.

According to private messages seen by The Times, those who were not let go tried to find out who was left. Workers who lost their jobs while they were pregnant or on work visas received notes of support from them. Two people familiar with the layoffs said that some employees volunteered to be laid off in order to keep their jobs.

The laid off employees were told that they would get more information in a week. They knew that what they would get in severance would be less than what the previous management would have paid.

Lauren Hirsch, Emma Goldberg, Chang Che, Adam Satariano and Kalley Huang reported.