Daily Authority: Twitter layoffs begin

😱 Happy Friday! Today we have a bit of news that should surprise absolutely no one regarding the future of Twitter. I’m glad I haven’t invested much time in the platform because Y I K E S.

Scarcely a week after assuring employees that he won’t lay off the majority of the workforce, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has begun laying off the majority of the workforce. He previously promised investors he’d cut 75% of the workforce, so at least we know where his loyalties lie.

• An email went out to employees on Thursday evening stating that the company would begin layoffs starting Friday (that’s today).
• If they get to keep their job, they’d receive an email via their work email. If not, they’d receive an email via their personal email.
• However, many employees found out early when access to their work email and company Slack was removed.
• As you can imagine, morale quickly tanked.
• Earlier this week, Twitter managers also reportedly asked workers to work 12 hours days, seven days a week.
• This may have been an effort to get employees to quit rather than fire them, in order to avoid severance.
• Employees are required to give 60 days’ notice before termination under the WARN Act.
• Wasting no time, Twitter employees have already filed a lawsuit ($) for not receiving enough notice.
• Apparently, these layoffs were in the works before Musk took over the company, but the timing and execution couldn’t be worse.
• This is just the latest in what has been a disastrous first week for Musk at Twitter.
• Get the full history in this handy guide.

Other big cuts coming

• In addition to culling his workforce, Musk is also searching for ways to cut costs across the company to recoup his investment.
• Reportedly, he’s looking to save $500 million in annual costs by cutting data servers, software infrastructure, and content moderation tools.
• This has left some engineers worried about their ability to keep the site running.
• Today’s layoffs also hit the company across the board, in the sales, trust and safety, marketing, product, engineering, and legal teams.
• Will the move instill confidence in advertisers and everyday users? Probably not.
• In fact, several big advertisers have already pulled out, and the exodus is likely to continue.
• If you’re thinking of jumping ship, here are some Twitter alternatives worth checking out.

For those of us old (and lucky) enough to grow up in the SNES era, Earthbound (called Mother 2 in Japan) is one of the most iconic RPGs around. The unique visuals and sound design made the game a massive cult classic, despite Mother 1 and Mother 3 remaining Japan-only games.

My Earthbound cartridge is safely tucked away in storage, but if you want to check out (or relive) the magic, you can do so with a SNES emulator on your phone. If you have a Nintendo Switch, the first two games are also included with Nintendo Switch Online.

Nostalgically yours,
Nick Fernandez, Editor.