Elon Musk, the new owner of microblogging platform, Twitter, has claimed that the company loses $4 million daily due to its large global workforce.
In a bid to justify the mass lay-off exercise which shook the company on Friday, the billionaire said the move was necessary to cut the cost of running the platform.
The Chief Twit, as he dubs himself, wrote in a tweet on Friday, “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day.”
Musk also claimed that the fired workers will be “offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.”
In an email sent to Twitter employees on Thursday evening, it was announced that layoffs would begin immediately, and fired workers should not to return to work on Friday, New York Times reports.
Affected employees also took to Twitter to reveal that they were suddenly logged off their company email and systems on Friday.
The email read in part, “In an effort to place Twitter on an health path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce.
“We recognise that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
Quoting anonymous sources, Bloomberg also reported on Thursday that coupled with firing half of its staff members, Musk was also planning to reverse the company’s existing work-from-anywhere policy.
The world’s richest man has been making major changes to the company ever since he took the reins in October.
Musk had earlier fired major executives in the company including former CEO, Parag Agrawal, the Chief Financial Officer, Ned Segal; Chief legal officer, Vijaya Gadde; and general counsel Sean Edgett.
The Tesla Boss also announced a new monthly fee of $8 for the blue tick verification badge, which is used to identify public figures.
While he has received backlash for the new move, Musk is sticking to his guns on the decision.
“Trash me all day, but it’ll cost $8,” he tweeted on Saturday.
