Elon Musk fired “dozens” of employees who criticised him on company Slack channels, according to ABC News.
Two former employees of Twitter told the news publication that “dozens” lost their jobs over the criticisms, and they received their termination emails overnight.
Other sources are alleging the number of employees sacked for bashing Twitter’s new CEO could be as many as 20.
The emails from Twitter HR read:
“We regret to inform you that your employment is terminated effective immediately. Your recent behavior has violated company policy.”
One of the employees commented: "I can only assume this was for not showing 100% loyalty on Slack.
"I have heard the same thing has happened to many others."
Some of the employees who spoke out are reported to have used Twitter, while others are said to have used an internal Slack channel called the “social watercooler”.
Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Elon Musk, who acquired the social media giant in October for $44 billion, corroborated the firings in a tweet: “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”
Musk’s decision to lay off these employees over criticisms comes soon after his public disagreement and subsequent firing of Eric Frohnhoefer, Staff Software Engineer, who had worked at Twitter for over eight years, according to his LinkedIn account.
The disagreement between the pair was purportedly over the reasons behind Twitter being so slow for Android users. Frohnhoefer quote-tweeted Musk’s tweet firing him and adding a salute emoji which has been used by a number of employees in response to the layoffs. On Monday evening, Frohnhoefer tweeted out a picture of his locked Mac, along with the words, “Guess it’s official now.”
Last week, Musk fired 3,500 employees, which equates to around half of the company’s global workforce.
Twitter is not alone in making mass layoffs, with a host of companies from the technology industry making similar moves. Twitter’s CEO, however, seems to be getting embroiled in personal conflicts and taking a hard line with those who cross him.
