Twitter layoffs continue under Elon Musk | CNN Business

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Additional Twitter employees were laid off Thursday as part of continued layoffs under new owner Elon Musk, including the public policy and media and entertainment teams, according to tweets from affected employees.

As part of Thursday’s layoffs, members of Twitter’s public policy team that remained after last month’s mass layoffs were cut in half again to about 15 employees, a former Twitter employee who knew about the layoffs.

The public policy team’s responsibilities include working with external advisory groups such as the Twitter Trust and Safety Council, which the company disbanded earlier this month. It also manages human rights programs to protect vulnerable users such as activists, participates in transparency efforts, works with government agencies and helps ensure compliance with global regulations. The public policy team had more than 60 employees before Musk’s acquisition, the former employee said.

Thursday’s departures come after Musk laid off about half of Twitter’s workforce last month shortly after taking over and later fired additional employees, including through an ultimatum requiring them to work “hard” or leave the company. Musk’s team, seeking to cut costs at the struggling company the billionaire bought for $44 billion, has continued to lay off hundreds of additional Twitter staff since then, including top engineering and legal talent , according to the former employee and several recent reports.

More than 100 former Twitter employees have filed arbitration claims or are participating in proposed class action lawsuits related to the layoffs.

The latest round of layoffs could further affect Twitter’s ability to protect key users and comply with regulations amid heightened scrutiny of the company following Musk’s acquisition.

Thierry Breton, a senior EU official, warned Musk in a meeting last month that the social media platform must take significant steps to comply with EU content moderation laws and that European officials will be keeping a close eye the fulfillment Musk has agreed to allow EU officials to “stress test” the social media platform for compliance with the Digital Services Act, Europe’s new platform regulation, early next year.

Twitter also continues to struggle with the departure of many of its advertisers, who provide the bulk of the company’s revenue. As of Dec. 17, 72 of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers had paused ad campaigns on the platform, according to a review by digital marketing intelligence firm Pathmatics, which it provided to CNN.

Meanwhile, Musk may be considering finding someone else to lead the social platform, after Twitter users voted over the weekend for him to step down as CEO. Musk tweeted this week that he would step down from the top role “as soon as I find someone dumb enough to take the job.”