Twitter Layoffs 2022: Acquisition Team Reduced By 30%

Twitter (TWTR) has laid off nearly 100 employees within its acquisition team, accounting for 30% of the department.

The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch reported the layoffs, which come just two months after Twitter initiated a hiring pause following a takeover bid from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Twitter has more than 7,000 employees globally, Business Insider said.

A representative for Twitter told Business Insider that the layoffs were to align with the company’s new business needs.

The employees that were let go will receive severance packages, with remaining staff reprioritized due to a decrease in hiring, TechCrunch reported.

Twitter implemented a hiring and backfill freeze back in May aside from its most critical positions.

Twitter has seen a shakeup of its staff as of recently. Parag Agrawal took over the position of CEO from Jack Dorsey, and Consumer General Manager Keyvon Beykpour and Revenue Product Lead Bruce Falck were also let go.

Additionally, Twitter lost its chief design officer, head of engineering, chief information security officer, and head of security, according to TechCrunch.

In a tweet, Agrawal posted about the employee changes, saying, “Some have been asking why a ‘lame-duck’ CEO would make these changes if we’re getting acquired anyway. The short answer is very simple: While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter.”

While I expect the deal to close, we need to be prepared for all scenarios and always do what’s right for Twitter. I’m accountable for leading and operating Twitter, and our job is to build a stronger Twitter every day.
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 13, 2022

The news of the layoffs comes after Musk offered $44 billion to buy the social media platform, but the deal has yet to go through due to speculation over spam accounts on the site.

In May, Musk said the deal was “on hold” until Twitter could prove accounts on the site were less than 5% fake. In an SEC filing, Twitter had said that fewer than 5% of the accounts on the platform were fake, according to Reuters.

The billionaire has also suggested that job cuts would be coming at Twitter back in June.

“We need to make more than we spend,” Musk said at the time, as reported by Business Insider.

As of Friday at 9:33 a.m. ET, shares of Twitter were trading at $37.25, down $1.54, or 3.97%.