Heisenberg Media, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
A Twitter manager threw up in a trash can after new CEO Elon Musk directed him to fire hundreds of employees.
This was revealed in a New York Times report published Friday, Nov. 11.
The Times spoke with 36 current and former Twitter employees since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the social media giant.
One widely-shared message on Slack indicated as many as 3,738 workers could be laid off. Employees immediately began saying their goodbyes and exchanging information, The Times reported.
“One engineering manager was approached by Mr. Musk’s advisers — or ‘goons,’ as Twitter employees called them — with a list of hundreds of people he had to let go. He vomited into a trash can near his feet,” The Times wrote.
On Nov. 3, employees received an email indicating that they would be informed of their status with the company the following morning. On Nov. 4, half the Twitter workforce was gone, including 80 per cent of its engineering staff.
Those that remained behind “slept in the office as they worked gruelling schedules to meet Mr. Musk’s orders,” according to the report.
To keep the company running, Musk reportedly told employees, “Those who are able to go hardcore and play to win, Twitter is a good place. And those who are not, totally understand, but then Twitter is not for you.”
In an embarrassing move, dozens of laid-off workers were asked to come back because some were cut by mistake and others were terminated before management realized their work and experience are potentially valuable to help build new features Musk wants for the site, according to a Bloomberg report, which cited two people familiar with the move.
