Dropped 'like flies': Former Twitter employee recalls mass employment exodus following Musk’s takeover

22 March 2023

A former Twitter employee is sharing details about a recent employment exodus that took place during one of the company's virtual meetings.

During an interview with CNN, Justine De Caires, who worked as a senior engineer at the San Francisco-headquartered social media network, weighed in on being laid off after Tesla CEO Elon Musk took over.

De Caires, who worked for the company for three years, recalled what he described as a "whirlwind of a week" as his department was working to prepare for the rollout of Twitter Blue.

"That night I had just submitted a code change and maybe an hour later, I heard some of my coworkers, they were posting 'Hey my laptop has this really weird screen on it and I can't log in,' and they were like in London," De Caires said.

"Slowly we realized what was happening and we just got on a Google Meets together and watched everybody drop like flies. It was a really weird sense of whiplash."

De Cairnes' remarks come several months after Musk made headlines for nixing half of the company's 8,000 employees in an effort to cut costs. On November 3 last year, De Cairnes joined other former Twitter employees in filing a wrongful termination lawsuit against the company.

Per Business Insider: "De Caires and five other Twitter staff filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter on November 3, alleging breach of contract and violations of the WARN Act, which requires companies to alert workers before layoffs."

The report added, "One motion added to the lawsuit said workers had been promised a severance package that would be just as good after Musk's acquisition of the company, and were dissuaded from job hunting during the period in which the acquisition was still being discussed."

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