JOB VACANCY JAGA KONTER GAJI TINGGI

Pandemonium followed. While the note said employees would receive a follow-up email the next morning about whether they still had jobs, many found themselves locked out of email or Slack that night, an indication they had been laid off. Those who remained in Slack posted saluting emoji en masse as a send-off for co-workers.

The cuts were enormous. In Redbird, Twitter’s platform and infrastructure organization, Musk shed numerous managers. The unit also lost about 80% of its engineering staff, raising internal concerns about the company’s ability to keep its site up and running.

In Bluebird, Twitter’s consumer division, dozens of product managers were laid off, leaving just over a dozen of them. The new ratio of engineers to managers was 70-1, according to one estimate.

The Aftermath

As layoffs unfolded, tech recruiters sensed opportunity. Top managers at rival companies such as Meta and Google sent messages to some of the employees being let go from Twitter, said two people who received the notes. Most of Musk’s subordinates remained quiet throughout the process. But Calacanis, the venture capitalist, had been active on Twitter responding to product suggestions and concerns.

Last week, Musk dispatched a lieutenant to the “war room” to ask Calacanis, who was there, to cool it on Twitter and stop acting as if he were leading product development or policy, people familiar with the exchange said.

“To be clear, Elon is the product manager and CEO,” Calacanis later tweeted. “As a power user (and that’s all I am!) I’m really excited.”