Did Elon Musk break law with layoffs? The '3-month severance' that Twitter-moaners aren't talking about
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY: Elon Musk has justified his decision to fire half of Twitter's workforce, saying he had "no choice" because the firm was losing $4 million per day, adding that the severance arrangements were fair. On October 27, Musk, 51, assumed control of Twitter with a promise to turn it profitable. He later acknowledged that his $44 billion acquisition undervalued the digital company.
To comply with California's employment notice regulations, his company had to notify 3,700 employees on November 4 that they were being let off and would not receive their final paychecks until the end of January or February. “Regarding Twitter's reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,” he said in an interview with Ron Baron. “Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required.” Musk has a fight on his hands to recoup his investment, but on November 4 he insisted that it might turn into one of the most valuable firms in the world.
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He argued that hateful speech on the social media platform has been less frequent since his takeover. “Again, to be crystal clear, Twitter's strong commitment to content moderation remains absolutely unchanged. In fact, we have actually seen hateful speech at times this week decline *below* our prior norms, contrary to what you may read in the press.” Evidently, Musk finds it annoying that more individuals are complaining about the rise in hate speech and that this has caused advertisers to pull their ads.
He tweeted fiercely early on November 4: “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They're trying to destroy free speech in America.” In response to his tweet, Ian Miles Cheong, a Malaysian gamer and journalist, retorted: “It's time to stop appeasing the activists because they will stop at nothing to hurt Twitter regardless of what you do.” Musk later tweeted: “'Power to the people!” Earlier that day, Musk made a joke about how it would be "deeply ironic" if someone "takes him out" on Twitter because he said it may be "one of the most valuable companies in the world,” as per Daily Mail.
The world's richest man arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan for the Baron Investment Conference in good spirits and jokingly counted his foes in front of the richest investors in New York. He was talking about his plans for Twitter and other businesses when fellow billionaire Ron Baron made a joke about Musk being immortal to which he replied by saying: “If I keep increasing that enemies list it might not be much longer.”
Just over an hour later, nearly half of the staff at the social media giant received a direct email letting them know they had been sacked. He would continue to be paid until at least January while avoiding California's labor regulations. In a previous post, Musk vented his rage against woke users for causing a "massive drop in revenue." Despite his best efforts to "appease" the campaigners, he called it "extremely messed up" and charged that they were "trying to destroy free speech in America."
Employees at Twitter began receiving the email at roughly 12 pm EST informing them of their status as one of the 50% being let go. The decision to keep the workplace closed till November 7 was communicated to those who were still part of the social media giants.