Twitter employees brace for mass layoffs after Musk takeover

Twitter employees are bracing for extensive layoffs as the company restructures under new owner Elon Musk, amid reports of a first round of cuts that would target up to a quarter of staff.

The reported layoffs come as the tech billionaire overhauls the company after buying it for $44bn last week. Celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro, a long-time Musk legal representative, led the conversations about the impending job cuts, according to the report.

Upon buying Twitter last week, Musk moved quickly to seize control, firing top Twitter executives including chief executive Parag Agrawal, finance chief Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.

Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment. The company had more than 7,000 employees at the end of 2021, according to a regulatory filing and a quarter of the headcount amounts to nearly 2,000 employees.

Musk later denied those claims, telling employees he would not cut such a large portion of the staff.

An air of uncertainty has surrounded Twitter and its staff since Musk began his battle with the company earlier this year, offering to buy it before attempting to walk away from the deal over allegations Twitter understated the number of bot and spam accounts on its platform. Musk ultimately decided to go through with the deal, making the purchase official last week and immediately starting his overhaul of the company.

Reuters contributed to this report.