The latest round of Twitter layoffs includes engineering staff, according to reports. About 10% of embattled social media giant Twitter’s remaining workforce, including staff charged with keeping the platform functional, discovered that they had been laid off over the weekend, according to a report published Sunday by the New York Times. About 200 data scientists, product managers and engineers working on issues like site reliability were among those fired, days after the company took some of its internal communications infrastructure offline, according to the report. These cuts are the latest of several that have afflicted Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover in late 2022. Fewer than 2,000 employees still work at Twitter, out of roughly 7,500 who were present before the company’s go-private deal. The Times report said that the company had shuttered its Slack instance early last week, which made it harder for employees to communicate with one another, and that some employees only discovered that they had been laid off when they were logged out of Twitter’s systems, including email accounts and laptops. Additionally, a Google chat platform administered by the company for its employees was closed over the weekend. Esther Crawford, the head of Twitter Blue — the company’s verification service that had begun efforts to charge users a monthly fee for the coveted “blue checkmark” on their profiles — was among those ousted in the latest round of layoffs, according to widespread reports. Crawford was the founder of a social screen-sharing app called Squad, which was bought out by Twitter in 2020 for an undisclosed fee. Soon after Musk’s takeover, he implemented large-scale layoffs that, in some cases, affected entire departments. Several further rounds of layoffs have occurred since, and many more employees have left the company after the billionaire emerald mine heir issued an ultimatum to remaining staff, saying that they would need to work in an “extremely hardcore” way to continue. A request for comment sent to Twitter received no response as of this article’s publication. The Twitter layoffs come as tech companies, facing an uncertain global economy and slowing revenue growth, have picked up the pace of layoffs this year. After going on a hiring binge during the pandemic when lockdowns sparked a move to remote work and an uptick in e-commerce and online communications, they now face revenue declines. Related content opinion Apple's M4 chip really does compete with itself Just a few months after the last big leap forward, Apple leapt ahead again. By Jonny Evans May 09, 2024 5 mins Apple CPUs and Processors iPad news OpenAI unveils ‘Model Spec’: A framework for shaping responsible AI This first-of-its-kind document outlines the principles guiding model behavior in its API and ChatGPT, OpenAI announced in a blog post. By Gyana Swain May 09, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry Emerging Technology feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 26212 released for the Canary channel on May 8, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 09, 2024 253 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 opinion Think Shadow AI is bad? Sneaky AI is worse It’s bad enough when an employee goes rogue and does an end-run around IT; but when a vendor does something similar, the problems could be broadly worse. By Evan Schuman May 09, 2024 5 mins Vendor Management Security Vendors and Providers Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe