Elon Musk is said to have ordered job cuts via Twitter

San Francisco – Elon Musk Four people familiar with the matter said he plans to begin laying off workers at Twitter as soon as Saturday, with some managers asking that they prepare employee lists for the cancellation.

Mr. Musk from Completed a $44 billion deal Twitter’s purchase on Thursday ordered cuts across the company, with some teams cutting back more than others, three people said, who declined to be identified for fear of retaliation. The size of the layoff cannot be determined. Twitter has about 7,500 employees.

Since then, reports of layoffs have been spreading on Twitter Mr. Musk has agreed to buy the company in April. The billionaire, who also leads electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, owns He told the investors he will Make Twitter privatereduce the workforce, roll back content moderation rules, and find new revenue streams.

Twitter will be laid off before the November 1st date when employees were due to receive stock grants as part of their compensation. These grants typically represent a significant portion of employees’ salaries. By laying off workers before that date, Mr. Musk may avoid paying the grants, even though he is supposed to pay employees in cash instead of their stock under the terms of the merger agreement.

Twitter and Mr Musk’s representative did not respond to requests for comment.

Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, said Jared Birshall, head of Mr. Musk’s family office, told him layoffs were coming on Twitter. “I was told to expect somewhere about 50 percent of people to be laid off,” he said.

Mr. Gerber said his company invested less than $1 million to help fund Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Mr. Birchall did not respond to an email for comment.

Mr. Musk, 51, has moved quickly since taking ownership of Twitter on Thursday. he is Arrived at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco On Wednesday he began to meet the staff. late on Thursday, Twitter CEO sackedCFO and other executives. He made too A call to advertiserswho provide the bulk of Twitter’s revenue, to tell them the platform will be a respected advertising destination.

But Mr. Musk takes time to evaluate other areas of Twitter, such as deciding which posts to follow and remove on the site. While he initially said he wanted Twitter to be a free place for all kinds of comments and bring back banned users, Including former President Donald J TrumpMr. Musk made it clear on Friday that such changes would not occur immediately. Instead, he announced that he was planning on it board formation To handle content questions and not immediately bring back blocked users.

Mr. Musk is unlikely to pay the golden parachutes that were due to be received by the dismissed Twitter executives. Under the merger agreement, those executives – including Parag Agrawal, the chief executive – are set to receive compensation ranging from $20 million to $60 million if they are fired. But Musk fired the executives for “cause,” meaning he did so because he claimed he had justification, which could invalidate that agreement, two people familiar with the matter said.

Those executives, who also include former chief financial officer Ned Segal, former general counsel Sean Edget, and former chief policy and law executive Vijaya Jade, are deliberating on their next steps, one person said.

Mr. Musk may also test Twitter engineers. Three people familiar with the matter said he and his team commissioned some of them to complete projects. They said that one of the projects included changes to the Twitter login screen. They said some engineers worked late into the night on Friday to complete the tasks.

On Twitter, some users who accused the platform of seizing the new ownership triumphed, while others expressed concern that the site would be inundated with hate speech and disinformation. Some users – like star producer Shonda Rhimes, “This Is Us“ Executive Producer Ken Olin and The Billionaires opposed Brian Kopelman tweeted that they were leaving the social media platform now that it was run by Mr. Musk.

Other Twitter users have expressed concern about the surge in hate speech reported on the platform since Mr Musk took control. NBA star LeBron James points to a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a private group that studies the spread of ideological content on the Internet, which He said That the use of racial defamation on Twitter increased by nearly 500 per cent in the 12 hours after the completion of the Mr. Musk deal.

“I don’t know Elon Musk, and it doesn’t matter who owns Twitter,” Mr. James chirp. “But I will say that if this is true, I hope he and his people will take this seriously because this is scary.”

On Saturday, Mr. Musk took to Twitter to discuss food. “Fresh bread and pastries are one of life’s greatest joys,” he wrote on Twitter.