Twitter Lays Off 200, Including Viral ‘Sleeping Bag’ Employee

Twitter layoffs have been common since the company was taken over by Elon Musk last October, and the social media giant’s latest round is indicative that Twitter owner and CEO won’t be stopping anytime soon.

The New York Times reported on Monday that Twitter slashed another 200 workers, roughly 10% of the company’s total remaining workforce. It’s estimated that the company now has less than 2,000 working employees.

Reports say those affected were product managers, data scientists, and engineers. This was the eighth round of layoffs at Twitter under Musk’s guise.

One of those reportedly laid off was Esther Crawford, director of product management at Twitter who infamously went viral in November after a coworker posted a photo of her sleeping on the floor of the Twitter office in an attempt to “make deadlines.”

When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork https://t.co/UBGKYPilbD— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022

“We’ve been in the midst of a crazy public acquisition for months but we keep going & I’m so proud of our strength & resilience,” she wrote on social media at the time in wake of the photo making its rounds. “Building new things at Twitter’s scale is very hard to do. I’m lucky to be doing this work alongside some of the best people in tech.”

Though Crawford did not confirm she had been let go (her Twitter bio still read that she was employed by the company as of Monday morning), she did pen a message to followers that seemed to reference those who mocked her during sleeping bag-gate.

The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake. Those who jeer & mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos.— Esther Crawford (@esthercrawford) February 27, 2023

Twitter’s Slack messaging service was reportedly taken offline a week prior to the layoffs, and employees (both current and former) claimed that Twitter had logged workers out of their corporate email accounts and laptops on Saturday night.

Waking up to find I’ve been locked out of my email. Looks like I’m let go. Now my Revue journey is really over ?— Martijn (@mdekuijper) February 26, 2023

Some Twitter engineers are being locked out of their work emails and laptops tonight, and believe that it is a layoff. Unclear at the moment how many people had this happen, but Musk told employees in late Nov. that layoffs were done. w/@RMac18— kate conger (@kateconger) February 26, 2023

On Sunday, Musk Tweeted a seemingly uplifting message hoping his followers were enjoying their weekends.

Hope you have a good Sunday.

First day of the rest of your life.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 26, 2023

“First day of the rest of your life,” he penned, in what some have perceived as a cheeky nod to employees that had been let go.

Though Musk did not publicly comment on the layoffs nor confirm a number, Managing Editor at Platform Zoe Schiffer reported that Musk acknowledged the layoffs internally.

He acknowledged that the recent round of layoffs were difficult and said Twitter employees who are still at the company are highly regarded by those around them.— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) February 27, 2023

Musk came in heavy-handed, axing employees from the beginning of his $44 billion acquisition of the company, including ousting Twitter’s former CEO Parag Agrawal within one week of his takeover and losing nearly 66% of workers within the first month.

It’s estimated that Twitter has lost over 5,500 employees since last October.