Elon Musk has axed Twitter staff that verify politician accounts days ahead of the US midterm elections
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New Twitter chief Elon Musk has slashed a public policy team that accredited politician accounts on the platform during his chaotic acquisition of the company days away from the US midterm elections, Politico reported.
Musk purchased the company in a $44 billion deal last Friday and within a week has laid off almost half of the global staff of 7,500. According to Politico, some of those jobs belonged to members of the public policy team who assisted in verifying which accounts were genuine public figures and politician accounts.
Half of the company’s public policy team was laid off as the midterm elections neared, Politico reported, citing sources close to the matter. Hundreds of employees from the company’s content moderation team — including people who worked to combat election misinformation — were also laid off. About 15 staff members are left on that team, according to Bloomberg.
A number of employees received blunt termination emails like this one reviewed by Insider.
Notably, one of Musk’s initial moves at the helm of the social media company was to fire Twitter’s public policy and trust and safety lead Vijaya Gadded, who made the call to ban former President Donald Trump. Twitter’s tools to ban and suspend accounts are currently not available, according to Bloomberg.
Twitter — whose communications team was almost fully gutted as well, per the New York Times — did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. Musk did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
As the mass layoff was underway starting at 9 a.m. Pacific time Friday morning, some employees also reported losing access to their work emails and messaging systems such as Slack within hours after receiving the termination email.