Twitter employees have slated Elon Musk’s reported plans to replace or remove the jobs of 75 per cent of the social media platform’s workforce if his deal to buy it proceeds.
The billionaire’s plans, which were reported in The Washington Post last week, would account for 5,500 of the 7,500-strong workforce. Mr Musk previously described Twitter’s workforce as bloated, saying it had a “strong, left-wing bias”.
Before the deadline to agree on a deal on Friday, October 28 , TIME reports that it has seen a draft of an open letter that Twitter employees plan to circulate.
The employees demand that Mr Musk commits to preserving the company’s existing workforce. They argue that he should not discriminate against employees based on their political beliefs. There are also demands that the potential buyer must commit to fair severance policies and clearer communication about working conditions.
“Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation,” reads the letter. “A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.
“We demand to be treated with dignity, and to not be treated as mere pawns in a game played by billionaires.”
The identities and number of people who have signed the as-yet-unpublished letter have not been made public. Employees have reassured possible signatories that “signatures will not be made public unless we have critical mass”.
The letter outlines the potential damage cutting the workforce so drastically, citing the impact that Twitter has on communities around the world. This includes “uplifting independent journalism in Ukraine and Iran”.
Many people have expressed concern about issues with content moderation and network outages if key teams are left understaffed. It has not yet been confirmed if or when the open letter will be made public, having only been reviewed by TIME so far.
