Sources: at an all-hands, Elon Musk said Twitter is done with layoffs and actively recruiting for roles in engineering and sales; Twitter has 2,700+ employees

After purging nearly two-thirds of Twitter's 7,500-person workforce in three weeks, Elon Musk is hiring again.

The Verge 2022-11-22 Alex Heath

Context & Ripple Effects

Twitter’s staffing reset followed plans to cut roughly half its workforce, then a recall of employees needed for priority work and reports of more than 1,200 full-time employees resigning after the initial reductions. Recruiting for engineering and sales marks an attempt to refill functions the cuts and departures left exposed.

The later record complicates the claimed endpoint: Twitter subsequently cut dozens of sales and engineering roles while pushing its ad-targeting work. That makes this hiring push significant less as a stable expansion than as part of a rapid reconfiguration of the same teams.

First-order effects

Twitter can begin adding engineering and sales personnel after shrinking to more than 2,700 employees, directing new headcount toward product delivery and revenue work.
Employees in the targeted functions gain a clearer near-term staffing signal after the earlier cuts, recalls, and resignations.

Second-order effects

Engineering and sales candidates can evaluate Twitter against a workforce strategy that had already moved from mass cuts to targeted recalls and then recruiting, raising the premium on role-specific urgency over broad hiring assurances.
Twitter’s sales organization is positioned to rebuild capabilities alongside engineering rather than treating ad revenue work as separate from product development.

Third-order effects

The subsequent sales-and-engineering reductions show a leaner operating model in which staffing is repeatedly reallocated around Musk’s immediate product and advertising priorities, rather than restored to its prior scale.
If that pattern persists, Twitter’s ability to retain specialized employees will depend on whether rapid hiring-and-cutting cycles can supply critical skills without recreating the gaps that prompted the earlier recalls.

The trend: Twitter is shifting from a broad workforce reduction to tightly targeted hiring and redeployment, with engineering and revenue functions repeatedly reprioritized.

Discussion

Twitter Help Center Twitter Help Center on x
Fixing a bug in our Account Activity API
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
More layoffs hit Twitter's sales team this morning, per someone affected. Account managers and client partners started to be informed last night. Comes a day after Musk held a short-notice Sunday evening all-hands meeting with the sales team where layoffs were not discussed.
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Going forward, all Twitter employees are now required to send an email every Friday updating Elon Musk with what they are working on and “code samples” if they are engineers, per internal memo sent out. Hardcore! https://www.theverge.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Twitter added 1.6M daily active users this past week, another all-time high https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
New: Elon Musk just told Twitter employees in an all hands (that is still ongoing) that no more layoffs are planned and that the company is recruiting now in engineering and sales roles. More on @verge soon...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@MrBeast Let's see what happens when Twitter offers good video with higher compensation for creators ...
@carnage4life @carnage4life on x
The natural tendency of tech companies in the bull market was that a reward for success was hiring more people. In reality, the opposite actually made more sense in many cases. Some feature areas simply don't need as many people after the big launch, let alone adding more people
@thecriticaldri2 @thecriticaldri2 on x
The fact Twitter seems to be running just fine with about 80% of its employees gone, shows how little work most of those people actually did.
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
hours after telling employees that they need to email updates of what they are doing every week, Elon Musk has cut basically all of their company perks, including wellness, productivity, home internet, training, and daycare allowances https://www.theverge.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Elon Musk confirmed to Twitter employees today that work is underway to encrypt DMs. “It should be the case that I can't look at anyone's DMs if somebody has put a gun to my head,” he said. Video and voice calling via DMs also in the works! https://www.theverge.com/...
@reckless Nilay Patel on x
Elon to Twitter staff today: “This is not a right-wing takeover of Twitter. It is a moderate-wing takeover of Twitter.” @alexeheath with more from the all-hands: https://www.theverge.com/...
@philmcduff Phil McDuff on x
This is pure makework designed to appeal to the cult of the tech genius. Meanwhile Tesla stock continues to fall as Musk still can't figure out how to service his £44bn loan. https://twitter.com/...
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
Engineers are smart enough to optimise for whatever is measured. Ask for “hardcore” coding samples and instead of deleting code, or changing configs - ppl will just write more code. Ask for business results and people might achieve them with eg config changes / little code.
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
Twitter engineers: please BCC me on these emails https://twitter.com/...
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
How to get key sw engineers to stay when working conditions are becoming worse (eg longer hours, no remote, fewer ppl for the same work): 1. Offer them a compelling vision/mission to stay at 2. Offer them career options 3. Pay them more. #3 was unavoidable As per @platformer: htt…
@mgerrydoyle Gerry Doyle on x
why... would you lay off a bunch of people and then hire new ones. especially since there's a good chance you will have to pay more to get anyone to touch this company with a 10-foot usb cord https://twitter.com/...
@adamsessler @adamsessler on x
What's so super sad about this (having worked with people who love to lord over others like 17th century Russian nobility) is that there are more than enough empty men who would fall over themselves for the chance to hope that The Dim Afrikaner might acknowledge them. https://twi…
@themaxburns Max Burns on x
No more layoffs are “planned,” but what exactly counts as a plan at Twitter 2.0? https://twitter.com/...
@growing_daniel Daniel on x
Reading the twitter engineering blog in case elon finally makes the call and oh god why https://twitter.com/...
@tslafanmtl James Cat on x
Hopefully some stability and growth for Twitter now. https://twitter.com/...
@zenofdesign Damion Schubert on x
Good news for everyone who wants to work for a thin-skinned tyrant with no operational understanding of the business and no feasible business plan whatsoever. https://twitter.com/...
@benedictevans Benedict Evans on x
FWIW, Facebook had 480m DAUs at IPO in 2011 - double Twitter's last ‘mDAU’ number - and it had 3,200 FTEs. This isn't directly comparable (not least that the moderation environment was very different), but it's relevant. https://twitter.com/...
@growing_daniel Daniel on x
they doing what now 👀 https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
During a Twitter all-hands meeting earlier today, @elonmusk said the company won't restart paid verification until “we're confident about significant impersonations not happening.” He prev. said the relaunch was happening Nov 29 but now that is unclear. https://www.theverge.com/.…
@genzforchange @genzforchange on x
Well if it isn't the consequences of his own actions 😐 https://twitter.com/...
@ron_miller Ron Miller on x
This seems like a good strategy. Get rid of a bunch of people who already know your business, overdo that, then try to hire experienced engineering & sales people, the very folks who are always in demand, regardless of the economic backdrop. https://twitter.com/...
@_alialkhatib @_alialkhatib on x
hey besties, i don't know who needs to hear this, hopefully not the 20 or so engineers remaining at twitter, but email is not a secure messaging format and you shouldn't send sensitive material on it if you have a secure alternative like... uh... robust version control systems ht…
@jodiecongirl Jodi Beggs on x
told you he didn't know how to use github https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Story updated just now with more from Musk's meeting with Twitter employees: - “This is not a right-wing takeover of Twitter. It is a moderate-wing takeover of Twitter.” - Twitter should be used by more than 50% of the population “ideally in every country without exception”
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
Sending out an email about what you worked is something (the relatively few) scaleups which have a very flat management structure (aka barely any eng managers) also do. The obsession with code: I'd expect will push devs to code up custom stuff over using a library it's etc. https…
@itguy1959 @itguy1959 on x
The greatest thing about @elonmusk takeover of Twitter is further revealing journos have no idea how the world works. A weekly status report. Oh, the horror. https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Musk was asked during the Twitter all hands today how communication could be made better so that employees can share what is going on with advertisers and other stakeholders. His answer was that he would tweet this about Blue later in the day: https://twitter.com/...
@dantley Dantley Davis on x
I had to do this early in my career. I worked with a PM who asked teams he didn't manage to do this every Fri and add the percentage of work that was completed. I asked him if he could tell the difference in work that was 90% complete vs 80% and he said no. We stopped the emails.…
@metareflexive Lucas on x
It's so funny that this guy insists on believing twitter is a tech company and must be run like one https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Musk said he has spoken to the creator of Signal @moxie about potentially helping encrypt DMs. Mentioned how Moxie used to work at Twitter before he started Signal, and how unlike Signal Twitter is well positioned to facilitate voice/video calling without needing phone number
@saradannerdukic Sara Danner Dukic on x
Going forward, all orchestra members are now required to send an email to the conductor every Friday explaining what they've been practicing and must also attach samples of the notes they've recently played. https://twitter.com/...
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
“code samples” Why would anyone work for this guy? https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Here is the topline from Musk's internal Q&A with Twitter employees today: - Company is hiring again and wanting employee referrals. - Musk was clear that layoffs are over - Twitter has about 2,700 employees left out of nearly 7,500 pre Musk https://www.theverge.com/...
@pleasebegneiss @pleasebegneiss on x
can't we just make another twitter without elon? like the exact same thing. and we don't tell him
@siruihua @siruihua on x
But he just laid off a bunch of engineers and sales roles??? https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
@unusual_whales Perhaps not unreasonable to know if anything was accomplished 🫶
@notcapnamerica Chris Evans on x
Yeah good luck with that “recruiting” https://twitter.com/...
@stevesi Steven Sinofsky on x
Elon Musk wants every Twitter employee sending weekly updates about their work via email now. https://www.theverge.com/... // even common team dynamics can be viewed as shocking, apparently. I had to send weekly mail for at least the first 5 years as an eng.
@chronic Will Strafach on x
I like that this is being persistently brought up. hopefully it actually happens. https://twitter.com/...
@alexhern @alexhern on x
one line manager, 2,700 reports https://twitter.com/...
@pnjaban Harmeet K. Dhillon on x
I like this idea ... https://twitter.com/...
@amydiehl Amy Diehl, Ph.D. on x
Employees encouraged to make referrals... Given that it is likely just tech-bros who are left, any new slots are likely to be filled with liked-mined tech-bros. Women need not apply. https://www.theverge.com/...
@eevee @eevee on x
what i would give to be a fly on the wall as elon “reviews” code. like a toddler holding a newspaper and talking out loud about how the business has gone up https://twitter.com/...
@brianmfloyd Brian Floyd on x
he's basically forcing a bunch of h1b workers that don't really have a choice to strain harder and harder to maintain their lives and it's very messed up https://twitter.com/...
@lib_crusher @lib_crusher on x
I don't think Elon knows what coding is lol https://twitter.com/...
@vkostyukov Vladimir Kostюkov on x
1. Here is code reversing a binary three. 2. Oh very important code to find cycles in the linked list. 3. Almost forgot: this mission critical code calculates how much water a container can hold. https://twitter.com/...
@film_girl @film_girl on x
I'm terrible at status reports so I'd be fired so fast with this sort of micro-managing CEO. What a waste of everyone's time. And who is reviewing all of this for Elon? https://twitter.com/...
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation. Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.
@bgurley Bill Gurley on x
So the press is critical of the initial decision, then Twitter backs it up, and more criticism. Wouldn't following through be the pile-on action? Quick decisions, even recanting, are way better than no decisions. Change is hard. https://twitter.com/...
@zaleskiluke Luke Zaleski on x
The world's richest man has taken possession of a global social media platform used by the world's journalists, scientists, governments, private citizens, businesses, religions, militaries and health/emergency services to share all vital information—It's going as you might expect…
@mmasnick Mike Masnick on x
Lol. This guy. Remember that the trust & safety team (who is now mostly gone) warned you about all this and you ignored it until you rushed a launch and made a mess of it? Maybe shoulda just listened to them in the first place? https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@wbm312 Whitney Merrill on x
So.... never? https://twitter.com/...
@vladsavov Vlad Savov on x
Musk in the summer: Twitter's internal metrics are not to be trusted, place is filthy with bots and fakes. Musk now: Great metrics, the best! https://twitter.com/...
@mattdpearce Matt Pearce on x
verification will be relaunched as soon as the lords set up some sort of peon-verification system — those born to the purple will perhaps receive some sort of special crown or regalia to denote lineage https://twitter.com/...
@rileytestut Riles on x
Why is he so against requiring official IDs or something to get verified? Wouldn't that basically solve all the impersonation issues and still let anyone with $8 get verified? Am I missing something? https://twitter.com/...
@baratunde @baratunde on x
Literally everyone told you this beforehand. Preventable self own. https://twitter.com/...
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
For anyone still wondering how content moderation is going to work on here now, here's what Elon Musk said at an employee Q&A about his planned moderation council: “This is an advisory council. I will hear what they have to say and I will either agree with it or I won't.”
@rakeshlobster Rakesh Agrawal on x
Call me crazy, but one way to reduce impersonations when showing “verifications” is to do some verification. IIRC, I had to send copy of my drivers license. There are services that exist to do online verification. https://twitter.com/...
@naterockquarry Nathan Quarry on x
Class, today we're going to learn about the phrase “reinventing the wheel” https://twitter.com/...
@xpangler Todd Spangler on x
More strategy on the fly https://twitter.com/...
@mikeelgan Mike Elgan on x
Musk puts pretend verification on hold until he can figure a way to also have actual verification to replace the actual verification he's killing. https://techcrunch.com/...
@goldman Jason Goldman on x
Good detail in this well reported story. Elon's content moderation interest seemingly stops at the water's edge. He is focused on tipping the balance in these domestic culture wars to match his taste and beliefs. So critical civil rights issues around the world will be ignored. h…
@noamscheiber Noam Scheiber on x
“At Tesla and SpaceX, the approach has always been high risk, high reward,” Dr. Madsen said. “Twitter has been high risk, but the question is: What is the reward that comes out of it?” https://www.nytimes.com/... Great story on Musk's method from @RMac18 and @JackEwingNYT.
@harrymccracken @harrymccracken on x
This story by @RMac18 and @JackEwingNYT is one of the best I've seen at explaining how Elon Musk works, for better and/or worse. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
Elon Musk has said his companies have been on the brink of bankruptcy many times over the past two decades. We mention at least 6 times he's said so publicly in this story, including when he recently described Twitter. It's all part of his MO. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@rmac18 Ryan Mac on x
There's no doubt Musk's co's have at times teetered on the edge and he's always been high risk, high reward. But there's also a sense among former employees that austerity and brinksmanship allow him to motivate people and add to their sense of mission. https://www.nytimes.com/..…

Chronicles