Elon Musk wants to fire 75% of Twitter and create a ranking of workers (it goes wrong)

Of the 7,500 people who work at Twitter, some 5,000 could end up being fired if it were Elon Musk, according to the Washington Post. That is, 75% of the workforce outside the company. It’s Musk’s plan if he manages to complete the Twitter purchase. A strategy to cut costs precipitously and try to make Twitter more attractive to investors.

Closer to closing the purchase of Twitter. The next October 28 is the day that the two parties set to close the acquisition. According to sources close to the company, this time it does seem that the agreement is feasible. As this date approaches, we learn about some of Musk’s plans for the company, including a very aggressive downsizing.

The template was already warned. For the moment, some awards for employees have been paralyzed and in general the situation is one of waiting in the face of expectations. In fact, Musk intends to speed up the layoffs, but they were already scheduled. Before Musk’s offer, Twitter’s board of directors was already planning to save some $800 million in salaries and lay off 25% of the workforce. Musk’s idea is to triple these layoffs.

Firing so many people can have immediate effects on the service. According to the current head of Twitter for metrics and SPAM control, a dismissal of so many people is “unimaginable” and could have immediate consequences on the proper functioning of the social network. Users would “immediately notice” and the platform could be much more susceptible to hacks.

The weakest, fired. Musk not only proposes massive layoffs, he also intends to implement a “stack ranking” system, which would translate as a vitality curve. The idea is that bosses have to rank employees from best to worst. A system to find the weakest workers that was popularized in the 1980s by General Electric. Then the most valued 20% were rewarded, kept at 70% and the least valued 10% were fired.

Microsoft already tested it in 2013 and had to remove it. In the steve ballmer times Microsoft also tried this “stack ranking” system, but finally decided to abandon the method because it ended up affecting collaboration, accentuating toxic internal competition and creating confrontations between colleagues. For whatever reason, it seems that Musk has another opinion about this practice and intends to carry it out on Twitter. A company that in the coming months can change from top to bottom.