In latest round of Twitter cuts, some see hints of its next CEO
Last week, Twitter executives received unexpected calls from Steve Davis. A longtime associate of Elon Musk — he began working at SpaceX in 2003 — Davis is currently CEO of The Boring Company. Since borrowing from Twitter last year, Davis has grown into one of Musk’s top lieutenants there.
Who is exceptional on your team? Davis asked managers as they answered the phone. Who would you bet your job on?
At first, managers assumed the questions were about annual bonuses. In January, Musk employees told Twitter employees that high performers would receive new stock grants. That hadn’t happened yet. Maybe it was finally time?
However, on Saturday, the real reason for the calls was finally revealed. Twitter workers attempted to log into their work devices only to find themselves locked out, just like thousands of workers before them. Once again there was no warning. If there was a twist here, then the train was coming three months after Musk told employees the company was done with layoffs.
The cuts affected more than 200 employees, we’re told, including product managers, engineers and a number of data science people. (The New York Times first reported on the full extent of the layoffs.) “Honestly, it felt like Elon was drunk and fell asleep on the ‘del’ key on his phone,” said a source. “There is no pattern.”
Among the more notable layoffs in this round were founders of companies Twitter had acquired from its previous owners. Haraldur Thorleifsson, Martijn de Kuijper, Leah Culver and Esther Crawford were previously on a “don’t fire” list because it would be so expensive to pay them off: as part of their compensation packages, the founders had stock accelerated vesting. All four were cut over the weekend.
Chris Reidy, the company’s acting head of sales, has also been cut, a source said.
Davis was reportedly charged with cost-cutting. Some former employees have speculated that Twitter will seek to evade the founders’ debts. Just like Musk did with Twitter’s former top executives when he took over.
Davis’ star has been steadily rising since he joined Twitter last year as part of Musk’s transition team. In December the information reported that Musk hired Davis to cut costs by $500 million; instead of this, He cut nearly $1 billion – while sleeping in the office with his partner and their newborn child. His success in cutting costs by any means necessary has led to growing speculation internally that Musk will choose him as Twitter’s next CEO.