Elon Musk to Reportedly Begin Axing Twitter Staff Starting Saturday

Elon Musk successfully took over Twitter Thursday in what turned out to be a $44 billion deal; however, talk of layoffs have run rampant since Musk agreed to purchase the social media platform. The entrepreneur was open with investors about his desire to take the firm private after reducing both the number of employees and its sense of moderation.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has reportedly already begun the process of laying off staffers, with the pink slip dispersal expected to start as soon as Saturday, anonymous insiders with knowledge of the developments have revealed to the the New York Times.

Musk has reportedly asked some of the firm’s managers to draft lists of employees to trim from the company roster, which currently boasts around 7,500 employees.

On Thursday, shortly after Musk arrived at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, he forced out Twitter’s top executives, including the chief executive and the chief financial officer, among others. He also made a public address to the company’s advertisers in a series of image-texts that urged the company would not become “a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences.”

Ross Gerber, who leads Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, has revealed he was warned ahead of time that the Twitter layoffs were imminent. Gerbers company has invested just shy of $1 million to help finance Musk's take over of the social media platform. “I was told to expect somewhere around 50% of people will be laid off,” he said.

The timing of the layoffs is convenient because it comes just before a November 1 payout of stock grants employees were scheduled to receive as part of their compensation packages.

Though part of the merger agreement stipulates that Musk is supposed to pay the former employees cash instead of the stock they would receive if they stayed with the company, Musk may be able to avoid paying the grants.

Report: Musk Takeover Saw 500% Spike in Use of N-Word on Platform

As Musk earlier vowed to bolster protections for free speech on Twitter as part of his acquisition of the platform, it appears as though some of the platform’s trolls are taking him at his word.

A study conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that the use of the N-word on Twitter went up nearly 500% in the first 12 hours of Musk’s ownership.

The institute, which analyzes the content on social media platforms to predict potential and emerging threats, further determined that some trolling accounts implored others to adopt the racist language.

"Elon now controls twitter. Unleash the racial slurs. K---S AND N-----S," said one account, using slurs for Jewish and Black people, according to US media.

"I can freely express how much I hate n-----s … now, thank you elon," another said, the Post reported.

One tweet, composed of a single racial slur, in all capital letters, was retweeted more than 700 times and “liked” more than 5,000 times since it was posted on Thursday, according to the report. Users with Nazi swastikas, montages glorifying Nazi Germany, and other racist propaganda was also posted by various accounts.

Members of the LGBTQ community have also been under fire, with misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ messages becoming increasingly popular among accounts supporting harassment and the misnaming of transgender people.

Legislative researcher Erin Reed said that the uptick in alarming content was noticeable almost immediately. “I’m seeing more people in comments with explicit threats, more misgendering, more harmful slurs. I’ve gotten pictures of me getting shot by a shotgun. It’s a pretty scary environment on Twitter right now.”

LGBTQ civil rights group The Human Rights Campaign echoed Reed’s concern, raising concerns about Musk’s ownership in a statement on Friday. “Twitter has a right, and a responsibility, to keep its platform from being exploited to fuel a dangerous media environment,” the group said. “This isn’t about censorship or discrimination of ideas — it is about what kind of company they want to be and what kind of world they want to shape.”