Following a wave of layoffs in the wake of Elon Musk’s purchase of the company, Twitter is now set to rehire some of the staff it previously let go.
According to reporting by tech blogger Casey Newton based on anonymous sources and internal Twitter chats, the company started reaching out to some of the people it let go, asking them to return. The abrupt nature of the layoffs meant that the company “accidentally” fired people needed to help build new features that Musk is asking for.
Newton’s report was later confirmed by both Bloomberg and Business Insider through anonymous sources. According to the latter, at least one of those workers who Twitter wanted to rehire has since rejected the offer, saying that they felt “used.” (Read: Twitter content moderation team unable to work following Musk takeover – Report)
Musk is reportedly pushing the remaining employees hard to get many new features, such as the ability to attach long-form text to tweets, out the door. To achieve this, Musk is apparently focused on quickly getting the features out the door with minimal testing, whereas the company would often run them through internal and external testing prior to his takeover.
However, some ex-Twitter staff have stated that they were let go even though they were already working on these features, resulting in Twitter’s attempts to rehire some of them.
Another feature that Musk wants Twitter to roll out—a new paid verification model where users would have to pay $8 (Php 466) per month to be verified—has been delayed until after the U.S. midterm elections.
All of this is happening while the company is facing a lawsuit from fired employees. The plaintiffs in the suit state that Musk did not give them the legally mandated 60 days notice in California. The firings apparently came so fast that many workers did not even know they were let go until they lost access to the company email and Slack.
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