Elon Musk Moves Quickly On Twitter Restructuring : Huge Layoffs On Saturday?

Although many predicted that Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy TwitterTWTR
could still fall through, the billionaire did indeed close the transaction on Friday and his restructuring plan was already well thought out and quickly implemented. At least the beginning of it—who knows what turmoil lies ahead?

Musk let go key executives CEO Parag Agrawal, CFOCFO
Ned Segal and the head of legal policy Vijaya Gadde, according to the Washington Post. However, don’t shed any tears for the trio, who take with them golden parachute packages and accelerated vesting of stock options worth almost $200 million.

However, that’s just the beginning of the bloodbath according to The New York TimesNYT
(which talked to four different sources at Twitter) the layoffs will begin on Saturday, ahead of a November 1 scheduled distribution of stock grants (and a key vesting date on some already issued stock grants).

Although the company is no longer public, Musk had previously announced that he would pay out the equivalent of the value of the stock grants, estimated to be about $100 million, in cash.

Interviews with various sources and document obtained by the Washington Post reportedly show that he plans to fire about 75% of twitter employees, likely well before a town-hall meeting with all employees on Friday. The New York Times reports many of the layoffs will occur tomorrow, October 30.

Musk reportedly told Twitter staff on Wednesday that the 75% figure is inaccurate, however, he did not state to what extent the layoffs would go.

Musk has courted key advertisers and said the platform will be an “advertising destination.” One advertiser, General MotorsGM
, has already put its Twitter ad buys on hold, although this could be due to Musk’s ownership stake in Tesla.

His ownership also rubbed some high-profile users the wrong way. Media giant Shonda Rhimes, This Is Us executive producer Ken Olin, Billions showrunner Brian Koppelmen and Bill & Ted star Alex Winter all left or said they are leaving Twitter.

NBA star LeBron James expressed concern over hate speech, citing a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies the spread of ideological content online, who said that the use of a racial slur on Twitter had increased by nearly 500% in the 12 hours after Musk’s deal was finalized.