Shortly after taking via Twitter, Elon Musk laid off about 50 percent of the company’s workforce. On the same day, he tweeted that all those made redundant would receive three months’ severance pay. But after two months of waiting for the company to say what kind of severance pay and benefits will be available, several former Twitter employees say they haven’t heard anything.
As weeks of waiting turn into months, former staffers in the US are filing arbitration proceedings, while some in the UK are trying to negotiate terms. In other countries where Twitter laid off staff, nothing has been heard.
Shortly after the layoffs were announced, Twitter had to backtrack and keep some employees on the payroll longer. California workers were employed but not working until Jan. 4 to avoid violating the state’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN. In New York, former staffers will continue to serve for one month in accordance with state law. But as those deadlines pass, Twitter’s silence has become deafening.
Seven former Twitter employees who spoke to WIRED said they had not received information about their layoffs, despite some approaching or past their last day at the company. Last month, a handful of former employees announced they would file arbitration suits against the company, claiming it had violated the WARN Act and that the handling of the layoffs constituted a breach of contract.
A former employee, who was laid off in November, is awaiting legal action to see if they will be fired at all – and is not confident they will. Another, who was fired in early November, has not heard from the company.
A third have yet to receive severance pay details, though they have been hounding Twitter for information since they were fired in November. They had been promised at least twice before that they would get details of their package – and each time the promised deadline passed without any information.
A former staff member in the UK says they have also not received notice of the layoff, but are currently discussing terms with the company on behalf of the country’s approximately 300 employees.
A former employee of Twitter’s Accra, Ghana office, which was open less than a week before all staff was laid off, says they, “like other global personnel, were assured of being laid off but have not yet heard from them.” The former employee says they weren’t sure what they could possibly do against the company in Ghana.
However, Twitter offers some severance pay. A former contractor says their boss received their layoff details on Jan. 5. As for the contractor, they got a box of chocolates from the agency that got them the job at Twitter. All former Twitter staffers approached for this story were granted anonymity because talking to the media could affect their ability to receive severance pay.
While some chose to wait until their official status as employees expired on January 4, others chose to take preemptive legal action against the company.
