When controversial billionaire Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter, the news was quickly followed by the announcement employees wanted to hear least: there would be substantial layoffs.
In the days and weeks that followed, Musk took an axe to the company’s payroll, chopping around half of the company’s 7,500 staff, and threatening to cut more if they didn’t sign up to his tough new work regime.
It was a dramatic move that captured the attention of, well, Twitter, for several days. But it was not an unusual one. Around the same time, most of the other big names in Silicon Valley – and many of the smaller ones – all announced layoffs.
Most dramatic of all was Meta, and Snapchat owner Snap announced cuts, too. At the time of writing, Apple is the last remaining big beast yet to announce any cuts, though it has instituted a hiring freeze.
