Twitter is bracing for layoffs as Elon Musk reportedly plans to cut 5,500 jobs in a move that raises concerns about the social media giant’s ability to prevent security crises and police harmful content.
Musk has told prospective investors he plans to cut jobs amounting to nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s workforce, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
Edwin Chen, the company’s former head of spam and health metrics, said this level of cuts was “unimaginable” and would put users at risk of being hacked and exposed to offensive content.
“It would be a cascading effect where services would go down and people would be left without the institutional knowledge to restore them.”
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“It would be a cascading effect where you’d have services disappearing and people without the institutional knowledge to rebuild them,” Chen told the Post, “and they’re completely demoralized and want to leave on their own.”
Cuts are expected regardless of Musk’s purchase of Twitter, as the filings also show that his leadership planned to cut wages by about $800 million, along with other cuts to Twitter’s infrastructure, such as closing data centers.
This was probably why Twitter was so eager to get Musk’s offer in the first place, and also why it sued him after he tried to back out, eventually leading to Twitter being bought by him for 44 million dollar. The deal is expected to close on October 28, and only then will we know the extent of the layoffs (and their impact on Twitter).
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll be talking about The Witcher all day.
Thumbnail image by PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images.
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