Twitter laid off about half of the company’s employees Friday after Elon Musk bought the company for $44 billion (44 billion euros), but now the company appears to have changed its mind and is reaching out to dozens of employees who lost their jobs and asking them to come back.
Some of the people asked to come back were wrongfully fired, according to two people familiar with the actions. Some were fired when management realized their work and experience might be necessary to build the new features Elon Musk envisioned, the people said, and they asked not to be identified discussing private information.
This week, Twitter notified nearly 3,700 layoffs via personal email inboxes as a way to cut costs following Elon Musk’s acquisition, which ended in late October. Many employees learned they lost their jobs after their access to company-wide systems such as email and Slack was abruptly suspended.
Requests for employee returns show how rushed and confusing the process was, and a Twitter spokesman did not return requests for comment.
Twitter still has nearly 3,700 employees, according to people familiar with the matter. Elon Musk is pushing those employees who remain with the company to roll out new features quickly and in some cases, employees are even sleeping in the office to meet new deadlines.
Over the weekend, Twitter launched a new Twitter Blue subscription plan that offers a verified marker to any user who pays $8 a month. The company also said it will soon roll out other features, including half as many ads, the ability to post longer videos and priority rankings in replies, @s and searches.
The New York Times reported that Twitter is delaying the rollout of the verified-tags feature until after Tuesday’s midterm elections after users and employees worried that the program could be abused to disguise politicians.
