Twitter downsizes India team as part of its jobs cull

MUMBAI: Twitter began the process of laying off its India staff on Friday as part of its plan to cull 3800 jobs globally following Elon Musk’s takeover.

In India, Twitter operates from Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore and employs close to 300 people. The staff in these three cities received a carefullyworded mail saying their roles had been “potentially impacted.” Initially it left many employees baffled whether they had been officially fired or not. An employee at the microblogging site’s Delhi office who received this mail told HT that within a short time of receiving the mail he lost access to his official email account and slack account. The retrenched staff has been told that the terms of severance will be conveyed to them next week. The employee who requested that his name and department be kept out of print added that the staff had also been asked to refrain from commenting publicly on the layoffs.

“Twitter’s employees across the globe had received an email on Thursday that they will be notified on their personal email ids if their role has been affected. At 12 noon on Friday I, like many others, received an email on my personal email following which my access to official email and other accounts was cut off and that’s how I figured out that I have been asked to leave the organization,” said the staffer who has been with the company for the last two years.

Another Twitter staffer who was with the company’s public policy team, Yash Agarwal, and who was also let go, tweeted: “Just got laid off. Bird App, it was an absolute honour, the greatest privilege ever to be a part of this team, this culture.” He followed the tweet with this one: “It’s been an honor to be a part of this team and this organization. It gives me immense gratitude even though nothing has changed with content moderation to be able to call you folks my colleagues and my friends.”

Not everyone was as cheerful though. At least two of the employees HT spoke to, commented on lack of any personal outreach in the summary firings. The company has not had an India MD after Manish Maheshwari left in 2021.

Elon Musk who began his stewardship of the company by firing CEO Parag Agarwal and others in the senior team complained on Friday that the platform had seen a massive drop in revenue due to activist groups pressuring advertisers even though he had done nothing to change content moderation.

Even though the confusion persists about the details of their severance, some of the staff who have been let go said they have already decided to move on. “We are in contact with other employees through social media and Whatsapp groups. I don’t think anyone will challenge this decision legally in

Just got laid off. It was an absolute honour, the greatest privilege ever to be a part of this team.

TWITTER STAFFER

India. I have decided to accept the decision and move on,” said one of them. Attempts to reach Twitter’s communications team for an official response were unsuccessful. They too have been laid off.

REUTERS Elon Musk