Twitter Lays Off Dozens, Some Learnt Through Email, Some Couldn't Log In

Twitter Inc. laid off more workers late Saturday in a fresh wave of cuts meant to curb costs at the social networking company now owned by Elon Musk.

The layoffs hit employees on teams across the company, including engineering and product, according to people familiar with the situation. Some employees learned they were laid off via an email late Saturday, the people said, and others tweeted that they learned they were terminated when they could no longer log in to the internal system.

It's unclear exactly how many employees were impacted, though sources believe it was dozens. The Information previously reported more than 50 people were let go.

Twitter has not responded to a request for comment by Bloomberg News outside normal business hours.

Among those cut was Esther Crawford, one of the executives who had been in charge of Twitter Blue, the site's subscription service, Platformer's Zoe Schiffer said in a tweet Sunday.

In the days after Musk's takeover of Twitter last year, she notably tweeted in a post that went viral that employees sometimes will have to #SleepWhereYouWork in order to meet deadlines.

Crawford didn't immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular working hours.

Just got confirmation that Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments, is out.

— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) February 26, 2023

Several startup founders who joined Twitter via acquisitions the past few years tweeted Sunday that they'd also been cut, including a founder of the newsletter startup Revue and the design firm Ueno. Previously, Twitter had tried to avoid cutting founders to avoid having to expedite vesting of larger stock grants, people familiar with the company said.

Musk last year eliminated more than 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the company's workforce, in a bid to drive down costs following his $44 billion acquisition.