Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Twitter Inc, now owned by Elon Musk, is now asking some of its employees to return.
The report cited two sources familiar with the matter as saying that some employees who are being asked to return were laid off by mistake while others were let go before management realized their work and experience might be useful for Musk.
Around 3,700 Twitter employees were laid off from teams such as trust and safety, communications, machine learning ethics, engineering, content curation and human rights. Of the 230 employees on the Indian team, 180 were fired.
After losing access to their company email and Slack, many of these employees found out they were laid off. It appears that the company has taken rushed and chaotic decisions, as some have been asked to return.
Several of the fired employees held American work visas, which puts them under severe pressure. H-1B visas are held by approximately 8 percent of the company’s workforce. H-1B visas allow US employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. They now have 60 days to find another job that will sponsor their visa or leave the country. This is not the case for those with O-1 visas (which allow them to stay in the country only until their contract ends) or L-1 visas (temporary work visas).
The current employees are under pressure to deliver new features as quickly as possible since nearly half of their manpower has been fired. To meet the new deadlines, many employees have even slept in the office.
Recently, Twitter Blue subscriptions were rolled out in select countries. As well as long-form text and long-videos, it plans to launch new features. It may be on hold until after Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US, according to a report by The New York Times.
