'Twitter' Fires Majority of Employees in India As Part of Cost-Cutting Measure

Twitter has fired the majority of its over 200 employees in India as part of mass layoffs across the globe ordered by its new owner Elon Musk who is looking to make his USD 44 billion acquisition work. Sources said the layoffs are across engineering, sales and marketing, and communications teams. However, there is no clarity yet on the severance package to be paid to employees laid off in India.

The entire marketing and communications department in India has been sacked, the sources said. World's richest businessman Musk began his innings at Twitter last week by firing the CEO Parag Agrawal as well as the CFO and some other top executives. This was followed by an exodus of top management. Musk has now started a massive exercise to downsize the company's global workforce. "Layoff has started. Some of my colleagues have received email notification regarding this," a Twitter India employee told PTI on condition of anonymity.

Another source said the layoffs have affected a "significant chunk" of the India team. The full details of the job cuts were not immediately available. Twitter India did not respond to email queries. The US-based social media platform, in an internal email to employees earlier, had said, "In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday." It said that "everyone will receive an individual email".

The company will temporarily close all offices for safety of employees as well as Twitter systems and customer data. "If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home," Twitter had said. While Twitter had several run-ins with the government over freedom of speech, the company in the email barred employees from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere. The company is reportedly laying off 3,738 people out of its total headcount of 7,500 across the globe.

(PTI)