Twitter Cuts Roughly 3,700 Employees After Musk Acquisition

New owner Elon Musk slashed approximately half of Twitter's 7,500-person workforce within days of completing his $44 billion acquisition, citing the need to cut costs at a company losing $4 million per day.

Twitter (X)

November 2022

3,700 employees affected

Global

Why Did This Happen?

Twitter was losing roughly $4 million per day and had not turned a consistent profit in years

Musk believed the company was severely overstaffed relative to its revenue and user base

Major advertisers paused spending due to content-moderation uncertainty under new ownership

Debt service on $13 billion in acquisition loans required immediate cost reduction

Strategic shift toward a subscription-first model (Twitter Blue) reduced need for ad-ops teams

Impact Analysis

The abrupt layoffs gutted trust and safety, communications, human rights, and engineering teams. Many critical systems experienced outages in subsequent weeks. Hundreds of additional employees left voluntarily after Musk's "extremely hardcore" ultimatum. The chaos accelerated advertiser exodus and spawned competitors like Threads and Bluesky.

Source: The New York TimesView original

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