Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, gestures while attending the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and entrepreneurship at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Former Twitter employees in Ghana, who were laid off in November, have not received severance pay and have not received a response from the company for three months, sources told CNBC.
As part of new boss Elon Musk’s cost-cutting efforts, Twitter has laid off nearly all of its employees at its only office in Africa.
Following the announcement of the global wave of job cuts, Musk tweeted in November that “unfortunately there is no other option as the company is losing more than $4 million a day.”
“Everybody leaving was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% higher than required by law,” he added, though it’s unclear which office and jurisdiction he was referring to. .
Under Ghana’s labor law, employees must be paid excess wages and must be be given three months notice before they are fired. Twitter workers in the capital Accra were given less than a month, according to sources.
One former employee, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of the situation, told CNBC on Monday that the workers had requested compensation in lieu of notice and emotional damages as part of the settlement. negotiated with Twitter, but both were rejected.
“Twitter has treated us in bad faith since we were fired in November 2022. There was not even an attempt to negotiate a severance with us until the international news started. first reported this and after we approached the Labor Office in Ghana,” said another source, who also spoke to CNBC on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the situation.
“It was a tedious process and they refused some of our requests, which we thought was fair given the circumstances and the way we were treated.”
Through their legal representatives, employees were eventually contacted to accept what they considered a severance offer that was mitigated in May, but had to endure radio silence from Twitter ever since.
“We played football and accepted their offer just so we could move on with our lives. However, they have completely ignored us since our lawyers contacted us. with them to accept the offer in May. For many of us, debt costs have also gone unpaid,” the second source added.
Twitter responded to CNBC’s request for comment with an automated response.
The first source also told CNBC that “everyone is tired and frustrated.”
“The deal wasn’t even what it was promised but we decided to just accept it and it was a struggle,” they said.
“Some still haven’t found a job, have a family to support and this layoff will go a long way, so this is delayed. [manner] just very sad.”
Since Musk acquired the social media platform for $44 billion in October, Twitter has lost almost half of its ad revenue and continues to generate negative cash flow, Musk said over the weekend, along with carrying a substantial amount of debt.
The company also faces competition from the new Meta Platform Theme, which registered more than 100 million users in its first week of operation.
Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, wrote on friday that Twitter last week “has become MySpace: a social network without innovation is slowly being destroyed by Meta.”
“The drop in revenue was related to the reduction in the workforce, but not because of it,” Galloway added.
