On October 27, new owner of Twitter Elon Musk, 51, reportedly began mass layoffs which included CFO Ned Segal, as well as the Head of Legal, Policy and Trust Vijaya Gadde and General Counsel Sean Edgett. Musk had seemingly criticized Gadde and insinuated that the company's former top lawyer had a "left wing bias". The Tesla mogul has been open about his plans for Twitter for some time, and had publicly promised to restore free speech to the platform.
Musk's conservative criticism of Gadde prompted Twitter users to invite Musk to fire her, with those Tweets using racist language to degrade the former attorney who was born in India.
But in an open letter to advertisers (whom Musk worried about scaring off after it was suggested that he, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorset, and investors would move away from advertising in their plans for the company) Musk seemed to simultaneously promise a balance between a "common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner" without allowing the social media platform to descend into a "free-for-all hellscape".
But the mogul---who is currently the richest man in the world---began larger cuts within the Twitter company, including San Francisco-based company's entire human rights team. Musk reportedly fired half of his new staff, though he had originally planned to fire about 75% of Twitter's employees.
The company's sacked human rights team had worked “to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders," said Gadde.
The layoffs led to a lawsuit by five current or former workers whose legal team is arguing that workers should have received 60 days' notice. The suit was filed in the US District Court in San Francisco, despite Twitter announcing that they would provide pay and benefits to employees who were asked not to return to the office.
Anonymous trolls took to Twitter a day after Musk's takeover of the social media platform and began sharing racist slurs and Nazi memes, according to one American news source. Rumors have been swirling that the mogul may reinstate banned accounts, including former US President Donald Trump, though his account remains unviewable. American rapper Kanye West, who fell from stardom as well as his billionaire status following antisemitic remarks he had made, had his Twitter account reactivated, though Musk denies responsibility for the move.
Despite racist and xenophobic trolls taking to the social media platform to express their hateful "beliefs", Musk has announced that the company will be forming their own moderation council with "widely diverse viewpoints" and will not make any major content decisions or account reinstatements before the council meets. Though he made that announcement the same day West's account was reinstated.