Twitter is going to end the week with a lot fewer employees than it had on Monday, and those affected are going to find out in less than two hours.
In an all-staff email, new CEO Elon Musk informed Twitter employees that they would be notified by 9 am PT (noon ET) on Friday whether they still had a job at the company. As many as half of the company’s 7,500 employees could be laid off, according to media reports.
That has not come without backlash, as the announcement prompted a swift lawsuit Thursday evening in San Francisco federal court. The suit alleges that Musk is in violation of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which restricts large companies from conducting mass layoffs without at least 60 days notice.
Other tech companies make similar moves
Layoffs are a reality for more than just Twitter. Ride-hailing company Lyft laid off 700 employees, about 13% of its workforce, on Thursday, according to reports.
“There are several challenges playing out across the economy,” Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green wrote in a memo to staff obtained by The Wall Street Journal. “ We’re facing a probable recession sometime in the next year and ride-share insurance costs are going up.”
Meanwhile, Stripe, a personal payment app, laid off 14% of its workforce on Thursday, and GoFundMe cut 94 employees, 12%, last week.
This story will be updated throughout the day.