Twitter headquarters are in San Francisco.
Adam Jeffrey | CNBC
[Editor’s note: After CNBC published details of an interview with people who claimed to be fired employees of Twitter, several reports emerged suggesting it was a hoax. CNBC could not confirm the identities of the individuals.]
On the first day of Elon Musk’s control of Twitter, a person who left the company’s headquarters in San Francisco and identified himself as a data engineer there said he had just been laid off. CNBC was unable to immediately verify the identity of this person and another person who made a similar claim.
One Twitter employee, awaiting information about layoffs or projects, told CNBC that they’ve been in the dark for the most part. This person indicated that Musk was meeting with relatively low-ranking engineering directors—a welcome gesture for some. Press reports before the completion of the deal said that Musk had planned cuts of up to 75% of the number of employees.
Twitter did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the layoffs.
Musk finally acquired the company on Thursday, ending a months-long legal saga. The billionaire Tesla and the CEO of SpaceX initially agreed to buy the company for $44 billion, but soon after tried to walk out of the deal because he claimed Twitter wasn’t candid enough about spam accounts on the platform. Twitter denied this and went to court to try to persuade Musk to complete the deal.
Ahead of the original trial date earlier this month, Musk again agreed to close the deal. Judge gave Musk until Friday 5 p.m. to close the deal, or set a new trial date.
On Thursday, several senior executives left the company, including CEO Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and CNBC’s David Faber. mentioned. Vijaya Jade, Twitter’s head of legal policy, trust and safety, has also been fired.
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CNBC’s Laura Kolodny contributed to this report.
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