Twitter terminates thousands of contract workers without notice as Elon Musk takes over

Controversial billionaire Elon Musk has struck again, cutting thousands of extra jobs amid ongoing turmoil at Twitter’s headquarters.

Thousands of contract positions have been slashed at Twitter as Elon Musk continues his aggressive firing spree.

According to CNBC, 4400 out of 5500 Twitter contractors have been impacted by job cuts, with staff reportedly not given advance notice.

Employees also told the publication the tech giant’s internal communications team have also all been let go recently.

CNBC also reported that the terminated contractors – based across the world – only discovered they had been let go after losing access to Slack and other work platforms over the weekend.

The latest round of terminations comes hot on the heels of Elon Musk’s decision to sack around half of Twitter’s workforce soon after taking over the company on October 28, after shelling out a staggering $US44 billion ($A65.6 billion).

Elon Musk is continuing his firing spree. Picture: Frederic J. Brown/AFP

On November 4, he took to Twitter to defend the move, posting that: “Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day ($A5.9m). Everyone exited was offered three months of severance, which is 50 per cent more than legally required.”

Earlier this month, a savage, company-wide email informed Twitter staffers that their jobs were on the line, revealing that mass lay-offs were on the cards.

“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 email stated.

“We recognise 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.

Musk paid $US44 billion for Twitter. Picture: David Odisho/Getty Images/AFP

“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted.

“We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process.”

After taking over the platform, Musk also immediately fired Twitter’s chief executive Parag Agrawal and chief financial officer Ned Segal, as well as head of legal policy, trust and safety Vijaya Gadde, who was the person behind the decision to permanently ban former US president Donald Trump from the platform in the wake of the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Since then, a slew of other senior managers have also been stood down or resigned, with the New York Times reporting that managers were ordered to prepare lists of high and low-performing team members.

Musk ‘100 per cent wrong'

Meanwhile, Musk has been widely criticised after he claimed over the weekend that Twitter was “by far” the biggest driver of “clicks” or referrals to other websites.

“Twitter drives a massive number of clicks to other websites/apps. Biggest click driver on the internet by far,” Musk posted.

But within seconds, that claim was mocked by Twitter users, who pointed out that Facebook was in fact the larger generator of online traffic.

Former Twitter employee Claire Díaz-Ortiz was just one of the countless people who dismissed Musk’s claim, while product developer Tom Coates also weighed in, posting: “100 per cent wrong. Embarrassingly wrong.

“I mean even if you ignore the search engines it’s wrong. I can feel your ad execs and partnerships people (if there are any left) shrivelling up the more you type,” he added.

Originally published as Twitter terminates thousands of contract workers without notice as Elon Musk takes over