Elon Musk Begins Mass Layoffs At Twittter

[Lsbcal]

I'll lay odds that there's a bunch of lawyers in California drooling over the money they could get representing those C-suite executives for their golden parachutes.

Never a fan of Twitter. Had an account but never figured out how to use it effectively. Deactivated it the day Musk took over.

I have not figured out how to deactivate my account on my PC. The directions I see on Google searches don't seem to work for me. Maybe I did not set things up at first since I don't see settings, just my profile which is not pretty blank.

 

[foxfirev5]

A few general comments:
Free speech: There is a big difference between "hate speech" and speech that you hate, and I believe a lot of people label speech that they hate as "hate speech."


Keep in mind Elon Musk's history with SpaceX.

1) During the development of the Falcon 1, he said in a interview he couldn't find a Chief Engineer will to work for the fledgling SpaceX, so Elon Musk took that role over.
2) The entire space industry laughed at SpaceX when Elon Musk started saying they were pursuing reusable rocket boosters. History has proven the entire space industry was wrong in its belief.
3) SpaceX now launches more cargo into space on an annual basis than all other non-USA countries combined.


In summary, SpaceX is easily the most successful Rocket Manufacturing/Launch Provider that we have ever seen. My question is, if Elon Musk is such a jerk/a-hole as the media likes to portray him as, how did SpaceX become so successful? I mean, you can't build a rocket by yourself, it takes a huge team. Why is SpaceX so successful and continues to be so successful if people "hate to work for Elon Musk" and would "never work for him?"


The same could easily be said for Tesla. If Elon Musk is such a terrible person, why are people still willing to take jobs at Tesla?


As for Twitter:

1) I know very little about twitter since I have never used it. Elon Musk initially say, purchasing twitter was not a profit driven motive and that he would likely not make any money off the deal. I will acknowledge his statement could have been intentionally misleading, but it does bare some consideration.

2) The bigger the company, the more bureaucracy and inefficiency. As bureaucracy increases, innovation decreases. By cutting out the bureaucracy and inefficiency (i.e. cutting out layers of management), Elon Musk is attempting to reinvigorate Twitter innovation.

While his personality is grating I have to admit that he has contributed much more than some other billionaires vying for our attention.

 

[Beststash]

I don't care for Elon Musk but I do admire his innovative companies. I do think he might be on the "spectrum" or very immature? He has a very large impact in the Austin area with the Tesla plant and working with the local HS's and Community College (ACC) to provide a path to employment for his businesses. He also has a "boring company" locally although I haven't heard that much about it.

I retired from a tech company and this news reminds me of the Y2K tech layoffs - it was a brutal time for everyone. The one thing that might make it a bit different is that at this time we are not seeing it throughout the tech industry....at least not yet. A lot of people in middle mgmt lost a lot of money as their stock options became worthless and a for a lot of the employees it was life changing. I flew around the country laying off people, some I had known for 20+ years. This experience convinced me to retire early a few years later. I was disgusted with corporate America and remain so.

At that time it was kind of a new experience for many of us to realize that "people are expendable". Not sure about these days but I don't think much has changed.

I blame poor management - when times are good there is a lot of money wasted, lavish team building, unnecessary and wasteful spending, but it always seems to catch up with you. Just another episode of the "boom/bust" cycle.

 

[dixonge]

The system lockdown seems a bit unusual for a big layoff, but then it's easier than manually flipping the switch on thousands of accounts. I was always one of the first to learn when an employee was let go. We had a checklist of things to turn off and/or disable. Company email (archived), firewall, remote access credentials, Windows login, badge reader, etc. Had to disable devices for wifi access as well. Typical I.T. stuff, but better than a disgruntled employee wreaking havoc. Multiply that times thousands of employees, and yeah, shut them all off, then turn on the 'keepers' manually. Lots easier I would guess.

His family was wealthy so he started out on third base. He is certainly smart but lots of people are. Having money just affords you the ability to expand your strengths.

That's actually a myth. Details on the origins of the story and the actual facts can be found here:

https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism

 

[W2R]

opinions, opinions, opinions... we all have them, here are mine

I got a Twitter account back in 2011, and tweeted once about a video game (to see if I could tweet). That was my only tweet.

But still, I think Twitter is very entertaining! You just have to remember that each tweet simply is not "God's Honest Truth". Bearing that in mind always, I get a lot of laughs from Twitter and sometimes get obscure news stories, rumors, lies, and scandals long before I see them elsewhere.

Twitter just gives me something else to do, when I am deathly bored and feel like there is nothing interesting to read even on the internet. That doesn't happen often but when it does, I have Twitter to entertain me. It always comes through.

As for Musk, I am not a fan. He seems like a nice guy, and I like that, but despite the PR and family money I don't think he's at all the brilliant innovative genius that some would claim he is. But so what? It really doesn't matter; I don't know him and don't care (and I'd imagine he doesn't care what I think either).

 

[Qs Laptop]

When I spoke of the "WARN" notice, I was referencing this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act_of_1988

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (the "WARN Act") is a US labor law which protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees.

Exceptions to the WARN Act
The WARN Act is not activated when a covered employer:

[..]

* Unforeseeable business circumstances: When the closing or mass layoff is caused by business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable at the time that the 60-day notice would have been required (i.e., a business circumstance caused by some sudden, dramatic, and unexpected action or condition beyond the employer's control,

Musk could argue that he doesn't have to give 60 days notice as he wasn't the owner 60 days ago.

Also, there are 5 Twitter employees suing Musk using the WARN Act as the rationale. The complaint is that they have been locked out of their accounts on Thursday, which they say means they are going to lose their jobs. Seems odd to me that you can sue someone who freezes your Twitter account.

The penalty is payment to the laid off employees of 60 days of pay. Also, it is legal for the employer to pay the laid off employees 60 days of severance pay.

If Musk fears being sued under WARN the likely scenario is that Musk's team negotiates a severance pay settlement with the employees and getting them to promise they will not sue him as a condition of taking the money.

 

[JoeWras]

One of my companies avoided WARN by giving laid off employees 60 days of employment before the actual lay-off applied. Basically, extend whatever package it is by 8 weeks of full pay and benefits first.

So, the WARN went out the day of the layoffs. You know, gotta keep the element of surprise and all.

 

[PlayinwithFIRE]

Paypal, electric cars, consumer rocketry.

These are small contributions to humanity compared to
ramming that harpoon into Twitter.

 

[marko]

His family was wealthy so he started out on third base. He is certainly smart but lots of people are. Having money just affords you the ability to expand your strengths.

For every 'third base' success, there's maybe 3 or 4 third base runners who are utter, complete financial and personal failures IMO.

I actually know a few of them.

As you say, money expands your strengths but it also amplifies your weaknesses. Go read the story of Horace Dodge Jr sometime if you really want to get depressed.

 

[NomDeER]

I find this hard to believe.

Working long hours, seven days a week? Not at all hard to believe.
Based on what Musk himself has said, it would not be surprising. He has said that he likes the idea of factory workers doing this and I'm sure it applies to other as well. Also, I used to work in the Silicon Valley, and it was not at all unusual for higher ups to have this kind of attitude. It was part of the culture. One guy told us that he expected us to "bleed" for them.

I think a lot of the better employees probably already left. They could see what was coming with Musk, and I don't just mean layoffs. Musk's attitude toward remote work (and calling remote workers lazy) alone probably led a lot of employees to look for work elsewhere.

Musk being interested in reducing hate speech? Hmm, I guess he won't be able to post either.

Based on what has happened since he took over, he seems inclined to contribute to the "hellscape" and encourage it, rather than prevent it.

I am not a fan. Putting aside the fact that he seems like a jerk (and I am not talking about Aspergers), I don't think he has great real business sense. There is a cult of personality there, no doubt, that he knows how to exploit. (I think Tesla's valuation was pretty crazy.) I also don't think that he himself is the innovator. I think that Bill Gates (another guy who I thought was a jerk but in a different way) was far more impressive.

Yes, a lot of successful business people are jerks. But, there is something that seems really off and troubling about Musk, and again, I am not talking about Aspbergers.

 

[Walt34]

Ah, the illustration for the old motivational poster:

"The floggings will continue until morale improves."

 

[dak2018]

From what I can observe, most of the men who have made big impacts on the world fit into the "big jerk" category.

The world would be very boring if they didn’t exist. And frankly, we’d probably still be hunter gatherers on the savannah.

And we might well have been engaged in fewer wars. Big jerky men with too much power have been shown to be a liability for the species.

 

[Chuckanut]

From today's WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-m...ive-revenue-drop-11667573127?mod=hp_lead_pos1

A few quotes from behind the paywall.....

In the layoff emails, Twitter said employees assigned “non-working” status would continue to receive compensation and benefits through a separation date, which for one person was designated as early February and for another early January. It said to expect to receive one month’s base pay in severance approximately 45 days after the termination date, in addition to providing instructions for returning company property such as laptops.

Twitter has posted a loss in eight of its past 10 fiscal years, according to FactSet.

Tech companies beyond social media also have embarked on belt tightening that is leading to job losses and hiring freezes. On Thursday, ride-hailing company Lyft Inc. and payments company Stripe Inc. announced major layoffs, and Amazon.com Inc. said it would freeze corporate hiring for months.

 

[kgtest]

Happy to report that I've never tweeted. And never will -

Lol. Same here!

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Isn't that what he has now? One of the 1st posts said that they only had $4 billion in revenue, from what I've read growth is stagnant or declining in the last few years.

Does he have unmarketable software developer types now? I thought Twitter had a reputation as a decent place to work, or at least they did until today. IBM came in with some study and gave a presentation at a former job of mine, and said the productivity difference of the top and bottom performers at a tech company could be as great as a factor of 17. If that is even remotely true, it is not a good idea to run off the top performers.


I guess if the other tech firms are having layoffs, too, then maybe the top talent will be forced to stay, at least for now. But I doubt they will be highly motivated and still leave the first chance they get.

 

[JoeWras]

From today's WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-m...ive-revenue-drop-11667573127?mod=hp_lead_pos1

A few quotes from behind the paywall.....

Yep. This is almost certainly how they avoid WARN. Sounds very, very familiar. If people think snap, surprise layoffs are a new thing, I have stories...

In the layoff emails, Twitter said employees assigned “non-working” status would continue to receive compensation and benefits through a separation date, which for one person was designated as early February and for another early January. It said to expect to receive one month’s base pay in severance approximately 45 days after the termination date, in addition to providing instructions for returning company property such as laptops.

 

[kgtest]

Ummm... I know that you have always liked SpaceX, and SpaceX had some real accomplishments. But when it comes to monetizing these technological advances, I don't think it is as lucrative as down-to-earth stuff like EV and renewable energy. When the world is a cold and hungry place, it's hard to get people to save money for a trip to Mars, which is just a pipe dream.

But back on free speech, we do have plenty of this, compared to China and Russia. Musk is one of those who do not think the laws apply to them, but when the PRC says "Jump", he asks "how high". With a single word, Xi Jin Ping can shut down China Tesla, and Musk knows it.

I remember when AAPL's latest CEO paid China billions to remain open for business their. Pay to Play.

 

[Aerides]

People who complain about twitter are kind of like folks watching cable without realizing how a remote works.

You can get stuck in partisan news, soft porn, conspiracy theories, arguments, and listen to general horrible people... on cable or twitter! ....or your can decide you only want to watch HGTV, Animal Planet, History, and your favorite movies (and turn it off when you don't).

Twitter requires a bit of curation. My feed is cats, gamers and cos-play, a few artists and makers, and a smattering of journo's from a few different places for news, to balance things out (left, right, middle, whatever).

 

[DJRR]

Wow!
The man has single handedly advanced space travel by 50 years, put electric cars into the realm of reality, on the path of fueling every home with rechargeable batteries and all I read is rumors of how bad he is going to be to the employees of Twitter before having done anything of the sort yet. How come so much hate for someone that has done so much good on just rumor and speculation?

Let's slow the roll a little. Don't forget the part paid by the US taxpayer. Tesla to date has received over $2B in direct subsidies and $7,500 per car sold in the US as a credit to incent buyers. SpaceX was built by govmint contracts.

He may be smart, but he clearly knows how to make money. Soak the US taxpayer. Doubt his companies have made a cumulative dime to date that did not come out of our pockets.

If you believe in US government industrial policy then Musk is your poster boy. If he is being praised as some kind of savant entrepreneur, then he is vastly overrated.

 

[kgtest]

Does he have unmarketable software developer types now? I thought Twitter had a reputation as a decent place to work, or at least they did until today. IBM came in with some study and gave a presentation at a former job of mine, and said the productivity difference of the top and bottom performers at a tech company could be as great as a factor of 17. If that is even remotely true, it is not a good idea to run off the top performers.


I guess if the other tech firms are having layoffs, too, then maybe the top talent will be forced to stay, at least for now. But I doubt they will be highly motivated and still leave the first chance they get.

There is something to be said about top performers leaving in mass exodus. I am usually one of them. The crazy thing is I end up getting HUGE raises each time this occurs. I remember a recent experience where the guy that created the software I was supporting told me he was thinking of leaving the company. I immediately found a new job. It took me a couple week's before I officially resigned, and in that time the person that hired me, another peer, and my own boss had left the company...with the original developer still there. FF about 3 months, he asked me if I had an opportunities I knew about so I got him an interview with the company I currently work for. He was overqualified and never got the job.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Man, reading this thread is

It's almost like some of you have some resentment toward mega-corp's and being downsize.

Twitter has (most likely like a bunch of other companies out there) been "overstaffed" for quite a long time.

There are 50 employees total running Craigslist.
Nasdaq (from my experience much more difficult technological skill) has 5000 employees (vs. Twitter 7500 or so).

The basic twitter design/app has been around for quite some time, how many are really needed for run and operate (even with a growing infrastructure).

While I am not there, I had 30+ years working on large scale systems, networks, and applications. System that people use 24x7x365. I realize that it means sometimes surprisingly large numbers of people are needed, but 7500? No way there wasn't a large amount of people being paid who not only didn't help getting things done, but actually negatively impacted getting things done.

 

[Ian S]

I’m also not “into”cars but I’ve always heard what a hot mess Teslas are.

According to Consumer Reports, on a scale of 1 to 5 reliability with one being the worst, the Model 3 is a 3 while the Models S, X, and Y are all 1's. Even Fiat manages to eke out a 2!

 

[Winemaker]

Man, reading this thread is

It's almost like some of you have some resentment toward mega-corp's and being downsize.

Twitter has (most likely like a bunch of other companies out there) been "overstaffed" for quite a long time.

There are 50 employees total running Craigslist.
Nasdaq (from my experience much more difficult technological skill) has 5000 employees (vs. Twitter 7500 or so).

The basic twitter design/app has been around for quite some time, how many are really needed for run and operate (even with a growing infrastructure).

While I am not there, I had 30+ years working on large scale systems, networks, and applications. System that people use 24x7x365. I realize that it means sometimes surprisingly large numbers of people are needed, but 7500? No way there wasn't a large amount of people being paid who not only didn't help getting things done, but actually negatively impacted getting things done.

And the fact that Elon has another platformed developed and said it was easier to merge the platforms rather than start from scratch.
There are already paying Twitter users prior to last week's takeover. By having some verified paid users, it will help identify some of the fake accounts, "when Twitter blows up" after a disliked point of view is tweeted.

 

[dixonge]

Let's slow the roll a little. Don't forget the part paid by the US taxpayer. Tesla to date has received over $2B in direct subsidies and $7,500 per car sold in the US as a credit to incent buyers. SpaceX was built by govmint contracts.

He may be smart, but he clearly knows how to make money. Soak the US taxpayer. Doubt his companies have made a cumulative dime to date that did not come out of our pockets.

Wow. For some perspective and context:

1 loan, much smaller than Ford and Nissan's, and paid back 9 years early

That's about the closest I can find to any sort of 'direct' subsidy.

The $7,500 credit went to any buyer of any EV from any manufacturer. Tesla isn't the only one.

None of that comes *close* to qualifying for 'soak the US taxpayer' .....

https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/25/whats-up-with-the-myths-about-tesla-government-subsidies/

 

[dixonge]

According to Consumer Reports, on a scale of 1 to 5 reliability with one being the worst, the Model 3 is a 3 while the Models S, X, and Y are all 1's. Even Fiat manages to eke out a 2!

and yet EV's just hit 10% market share, with BYD and Tesla leading the pack

https://insideevs.com/news/610535/electric-cars-hit-10-percent-global-new-car-sales/

Model 3 alone was 10th best-seller *globally* in 2021, and is expected to hit #5 this year, outpacing the Ford F-150!

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/06/t...-car-globally-in-2021-could-go-top-5-in-2022/

Obviously these buyers aren't subscribing to Consumer Reports...