Only a dozen people remain at Twitter after the majority of the engineering, product, marketing, and communications teams’ persons were let go.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the new head of Twitter, sacked 90% of the firm’s employees in India over the last weekend as the company reduced its global headcount by almost half.
Around 200 individuals worked for Twitter in India in total, spread between its centres in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. A global news outlet cited sources in reporting that of this, the majority of staff members from the engineering, product department, marketing, and communications departments have been let go, leaving the company with only about a dozen employees in the nation.
As of yet, the company’s India division has not released a statement, thus the report could not be independently verified.
Approximately 45–50% of the 7,500 total employees the company had worldwide were let go. Although it did not disclose the precise figures, it did state in an internal email sent prior to the layoffs that “a number of people who have made meaningful contributions to Twitter” will be affected by the firings.
Beginning last Friday, there were layoffs. Twitter’s offices were shuttered on Friday and no one with a credential was allowed in, in an effort to prevent mayhem. Personal emails were used to notify people facing the chopping block, while business emails were used to notify those who would not be affected by the layoffs.
Notably, according to data from Statista as of January 2022, there are about 23.6 million Twitter users in the world, one of the lucrative marketplaces for businesses like Google and Meta among others.
According to Statista data, only the US and Japan have more Twitter users than India, with 76.9 million as well as 58.95 million users, respectively. Analysts said it will be intriguing to observe how well the company will be operated in the days to come with the employees all over departments reduced to approximately a dozen. The website has frequently been charged with facilitating the spread of false information around the nation. Additionally, it had regulatory disagreements with the government.
The much-anticipated “Twitter Blue” service will be launched in India within less than a month, according to Musk, who has made it clear that he intends to make Twitter both financially successful and the most reliable source of information.
Select nations such as the US Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK have begun to provide the service, which has a monthly subscription of $7.99. According to the corporation, a few more features will soon be implemented, including fewer advertisements, the ability to publish lengthier films, and priority ranking for high-quality material. With the help of the Twitter Blue feature, users will be able to read the news more effectively and get early access to a variety of new features and extras, including the ability to change the app icons and add easy access to their favourite websites.
By far the most reliable information source about the globe, Twitter has to become, in Musk’s opinion. He tweeted, “That’s our goal. Brand free expression on the site, Musk claimed that despite the clear risk to his personal safety, he would not ban the account that was following his plane as an example of his right to free speech.