Twitter Lays Off Over 90% Employees In India Amid Global Restructuring

Microblogging social media giant Twitter reportedly fired over 90% of its India staff over the weekend as part of the global restructuring exercise initiated by the company’s new owner Elon Musk.

Twitter had a little over 200 employees in India, and the layoffs have reduced the headcount to just about a dozen, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The cuts severely affected employees from engineering and product teams in India.

After acquiring Twitter in a $44 Bn deal, Tesla boss Musk has initiated a complete overhaul of the company’s employee structure and business model. Just after taking ownership of the company, Musk fired Twitter’s top executives, including its CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.

As per the report, about 70% of the job cuts in India took place in the product and engineering team working on a global mandate. Besides, various positions across departments like marketing, public policy and corporate communications have also been impacted, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. 

Twitter has its India offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, sources told Inc42 that only employees in the public policy department and those working on government partnerships have been retained in the country.

Twitter declined to comment on Inc42’s query on the matter.

Speaking exclusively to Inc42 last week, one of Twitter India’s first hires and its former country head Raheel Khursheed called the current situation bad for its employees globally, but added that many must have seen it coming.

It is pertinent to note that while India is a key growth market for most global internet companies,  including Twitter, Meta, and Alphabet’s Google, these tech giants are also facing regulatory challenges in the country.

Following Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said last week that the country’s expectations remain unchanged on Twitter’s compliance with the IT rules.

Twitter has been at loggerheads with the Indian government over a host of issues, and is currently involved in a legal battle in the Karnataka High Court over some of the takedown orders issued by the Centre.

Twitter has reduced its global headcount by about half or approximately 3,700 workers, according to Bloomberg.

Besides headcount reduction, Musk has also introduced a new monetisation model for Twitter where individuals and organisations verified by Twitter would have to pay $8 per month. Musk also said that Twitter’s flagship subscription service Twitter Blue would be available in India in less than a month.