Just days after laying off about half of Twitter’s workforce following Elon Musk’s acquisition, the company is now asking dozens of those employees to come back.
On Friday, Musk began mass layoffs at the San Francisco-based company, letting go of roughly 3,700 workers via email. Many Twitter employees expressed learning of their layoff after they were already cut off from accessing company-wide systems.
But according to Platformer and Bloomberg, the company is already trying to reverse course and hire back dozens of employees it just laid off ― continuing the chaos Musk has brought since taking over Twitter.
“sorry to @- everybody on the weekend but I wanted to pass along that we have the opportunity to ask folks that were left off if they will come back. I need to put together names and rationales by 4PM PST Sunday,” still-employed workers read Saturday on Twitter Slack. “I’ll do some research but if any of you who have been in contact with folks who might come back and who we think will help us, please nominate tomorrow before 4.”
Some of those who the company is asking to return were laid off by mistake, sources told Bloomberg, while others were fired before management realized their experience was necessary to build the new features Musk wants for the platform.
Twitter did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on the reported rehiring effort.
Twitter is already facing a lawsuit over the job cuts. In a federal lawsuit seeking class action status filed Thursday, workers claim Twitter violated federal and California law by not giving enough notice before conducting the mass layoffs.
The firings marked the end of Musk’s chaotic first week running Twitter, where the billionaire hastily tried to find ways to cut costs and create new revenue streams for the company. Musk’s $44 billion acquisition deal piled Twitter with $13 billion in debt ― resulting in the company now having to pay about $1 billion a year in interest expenses alone, despite historically not regularly making a profit.
