After firing about half of Twitter Inc. employees on Friday, Elon Musk’s company began to ask some of them to return.
According to Bloomberg, citing two people familiar with the matter, some employees were fired simply mistakenly. Others were fired before management realized that their work and experience might be needed to create new features that Musk wants to see on Twitter, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.
Twitter laid off about 3,700 employees this week, simply by sending out email notices, to cut costs following Musk’s acquisition, which closed in late October. Many employees learned they had lost their jobs after their access to company-wide systems like email and Slack was suddenly cut off. Employees’ requests to return demonstrate how rushed and chaotic the process was.
“When it comes to reducing Twitter staff, unfortunately we have no choice when the company is losing over $4 million a day,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
According to people familiar with the matter, Twitter has about 3,700 employees left. Musk is pushing those who remain in the company to quickly deploy new features, and in some cases employees have even spent the night in the office to meet new deadlines.
Over the weekend, Twitter added a new Twitter Blue subscription plan in some countries, offering a verification for any user who pays $8 a month. The company also said it will soon launch other features, including posting longer videos and priority for paid users in replies, mentions and searches. However, even the $8 verification has not yet gone live, although the company already allows you to pay for it on iOS.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Twitter decided to postpone these changes until the midterm elections in the United States, which will be held on Tuesday. This was preceded by concerns from users and employees that paid verification could be used by malicious actors to spread disinformation before the election.
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