Sources: after cutting ~3,700 staff, Twitter asks dozens to return upon realizing some are needed to build features Musk wants and others were sacked in error

Twitter Inc., after laying off roughly half the company on Friday following Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition …

Bloomberg 2022-11-07

Context & Ripple Effects

The recall came days after Musk's planned roughly half-workforce reduction was carried out, alongside a separate deep cut to Twitter's India product and engineering organization. It shows the initial reduction was not aligned cleanly with the feature work management wanted to pursue.

The staffing reversal was followed by reported employee resignations and, later that month, an assertion that Twitter was recruiting again for engineering and sales roles. The arc is less a one-time cost reset than rapid reallocation of a shrinking workforce.

First-order effects

Dozens of laid-off Twitter employees regain a route back to the company, while teams responsible for Musk-priority features recover expertise that the layoffs removed.
Twitter must spend management and engineering time identifying mistaken terminations and reconnecting returning staff to active product work.

Second-order effects

The recall weakens the operational simplicity of the 3,700-person reduction: remaining teams must absorb shifting ownership and changing priorities while headcount decisions are revisited.
Subsequent resignations and renewed engineering-and-sales recruiting put greater pressure on Twitter to retain or replace the specialized staff needed for product development and revenue work.

Third-order effects

Repeated layoffs, recalls, resignations, and later recruiting point to staffing becoming a continuously adjusted operating lever at Twitter rather than a settled post-acquisition reorganization.
If that pattern persists, product delivery will depend more heavily on a smaller set of employees whose technical roles are directly tied to leadership priorities, making erroneous cuts more disruptive.

The trend: Twitter's post-acquisition restructuring is evolving from a broad headcount reduction into continual reprioritization of scarce engineering and commercial talent.

Discussion

@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
From Twitter Slack: “sorry to @- everybody on the weekend but I wanted to pass along that we have the opportunity to ask folks that were left off if they will come back. I need to put together names and rationales by 4PM PST Sunday.
@mattnavarra Matt Navarra on x
CONFIRMED: Twitter is now asking some fired workers to please come back - Some were laid off by mistake - Some were let go before management realized their experience is needed to build new features Elon Musk is planning FFS 😆 https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
Can also confirm @CaseyNewton's good scoop: some people who were fired from Twitter are now being asked to come back. Some were laid off by mistake, others the company now realizes they may need...oops! w/@EdLudlow https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@rakyll Jaana Dogan on x
I'm hearing from multiple personal sources that key engineers who survived the layoffs are resigning. These key engineers are mostly old timers and probably have a lot of financial freedom to do whatever they desire to do. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@mnateshyamalan Soul Nate on x
yikes. it's painfully obvious elon fired the team that writes the updates.. https://twitter.com/...
@hardlynormal Mark Horvath on x
Imagine being fired and then a few days later being asked back. Those who do not need the money will probably say FU, and those who still need the money may go back, but their heart won't be into their work, and 100% they are looking for new gigs. What a mess! https://twitter.com…
@radiofreetom Tom Nichols on x
Inspector Clouseau voice: “Ah, that felt good. I meant to do that.” https://twitter.com/...
@tznkai K. Chen on x
I appreciate everyone telling the workers to take advantage of the situation and negotiate, but some of them are on work visas and really can't which is a great reason to reform the work visas. https://twitter.com/...
@taylorlorenz @taylorlorenz on x
Twitter is now begging some employees who Musk laid off to come back. Some were apparently laid off by “mistake,” others were let go before management realized that their experience was crucial to build the new features Musk envisions. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@manruss Mark Russell on x
Amateur hour at the chicken farm. https://twitter.com/...
@iron_spike @iron_spike on x
Gee, I wonder what might have contributed to their “financial freedom” Perhaps world's richest idiot massively overpaying to take Twitter private, assuming they'd ever been paid or received bonuses, for YEARS, in the form of company stock, which is incredibly common in tech https…
@jimmy_dore Jimmy Dore on x
Weird that he doesn't feel need to apologize for being revealed as a collaborator w/ U.S. gov to suppress dissent. The neoliberals & pro-war neocons R sad to see Jack go because they support that very anti-American gov & corporation collaboration (Fascism) to censor free speech. …
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
We should acknowledge that hiring is unlikely to be a problem for Twitter. But without people who know (and built!) the current sophisticated systems, Twitter could well be in for a world of pain execution and reliability-wise. Let's hope retention is top of mind for Elon. https:…
@chenchenwrites @chenchenwrites on x
the flavor of this chaos is chaotic https://twitter.com/...
@buzz Buzz Andersen on x
Wow, you mean a bunch of galaxy brain outsiders with no domain knowledge spending like a week poking around and attempting to judge people's' contributions based on things like “code complexity” produced a distorted picture of who was actually keeping Twitter running? Shocked. ht…
@willoremus Will Oremus on x
twitter employees are angry with jack for selling them out to elon. jack apologizes... for hiring too many of them. https://twitter.com/...
@tristandross @tristandross on x
we fired hundreds of employees it turns out we needed to keep our 44 billion dollar investment afloat by mistake https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@tante @tante on x
Elon Musk is a fucking idiot who shouldn't be tasked to run a lemonade stand. His disregard for employee's livelihood is toxic. https://twitter.com/...
@chrismatyszczyk Chris Matyszczyk on x
Gosh, is their firing algorithm imperfect? Did they buy it from Facebook? https://twitter.com/...
@broderick Ryan Broderick on x
If I were apologizing for allowing a bunch of reactionary billionaires to pillage my company and fire half my employees so they can turn my app into a surveillance system for their futurist death cult, I simply wouldn't mention that I regret hiring them in the first place 🤷🏼‍♂️ h…
@jemelehill Jemele Hill on x
This is weak. You knew exactly who you were doing business with and you didn't give a fuck. https://twitter.com/...
@arctictony Tony Haile on x
So I was laid off from Twitter on Thursday and have since spent 90% of my time...on Twitter. I think I'm doing this wrong...
@chillmage @chillmage on x
Elon Musk seems poised to accomplish something actually valuable: to prove that digital institutions which seem permanent can fail quickly, easily, and unceremoniously. Even Facebook will be a fleeting footnote. Every platform wants you to believe it is inevitable and undying
@stevemullis Steve Mullis on x
Playing with people like this feels especially cruel https://twitter.com/...
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
While I'd like to see Twitter, as a product, succeed, we need to acknowledge that Twitter, as a tech company with decent professional standards is already done for. Staff+ engineers will be wise professionally to not be associated with the messy time to come. https://twitter.com/…
@imillhiser Ian Millhiser on x
I would demand that my entire severance be quadrupled and paid out as a signing bonus, then charge an exorbitant hourly wage. If I had information or institutional knowledge that Elon needs, I would sell it to him at the rates that mob bosses charge people with no alternatives. h…
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
Severance+signing bonus+salary, in that order https://twitter.com/...
@parismarx Paris Marx on x
big business genius lays off half the company then realizes the service doesn't work and has to beg a bunch to come back https://twitter.com/...
@justkelly_ok Kelly Ellis on x
If this were me? “Whoops, I just became twice as expensive to hire!” https://twitter.com/...
@mattnavarra Matt Navarra on x
Twitter Fires More Than 90% of India Staff -About 70% of Twitter India job cuts affected product + engineering teams - The company employed just over 200 people in India - The job cuts left it with just about a dozen staff https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@manishm Manish Maheshwari on x
What sadly stands out is the inhuman way in which employees at Twitter were let go. Simply by an email on Friday without any human conversation! Pretty ironic for a platform that prides itself in being the largest collection of human conversation online. 🥲 #TwitterLayoffs
@aulia Aulia Masna on x
So that's Twitter Ireland and India nearly gone https://twitter.com/...
@martinsfp @martinsfp on x
This kind of figure was floating around in India on Friday. The former head of Twitter India gave his thoughts about its impact during the Geekout Twitter Space on Friday. https://twitter.com/...
@faseehmangi Faseeh Mangi on x
Ouch. The company employed over 200 people in India, and the cuts left it with just about a dozen staff | Bloomberg exclusive https://twitter.com/...

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