Elon Musk said he had “no choice” but to fire around 3,700 Twitter employees worldwide as the company is losing $4m per day.
The billionaire took to Twitter to break his silence on the firings on Friday afternoon.
“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required,” he tweeted.
Earlier in the day, thousands of employees at the company ost their jobs, with staff notified about the layoffs in an email on Thursday.
“Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the internal memo to the employees noted.
“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”
Mr Musk has already made several changes to the company, starting with the firing of three of its top executives, including chief executive Parag Agrawal.
He had earlier told prospective investors that he intended to reduce the company’s staff from around 7,500 down to just over 2,000.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that he planned to cut about 3,700 jobs at Twitter – about half the company’s workforce.
