Several Technology Companies Offer New Positions for Twitter Employees Fired by Elon Musk

Katie Burke, chief people officer at US software company Hubspot, (photo: linkedin)

JAKARTA – Hampered by Elon Musk's tough management style? Move to us! That's the ad used by a talent-starved tech company trying to woo the thousands of former Twitter Inc employees who were laid off by the social media company under its new owner.

Twitter has fired top executives and imposed sharp layoffs with little warning following Musk's chaotic takeover of the social media platform. About half of Twitter's workforce of around 3.700 employees have been laid off.

Hundreds more are reported to have quit as a result of his sweeping reforms. On Monday, November 21, Twitter's director of French operations was the last senior manager to leave.

Spying on the opportunity, several companies are now trying to take over experienced engineering talent by begging them against the "humiliating" methods of the richest man in the world.

Katie Burke, chief people officer at US software company Hubspot, blasted Musk over reports that he had fired a group of employees who criticized him on the company's internal Slack channel. But Reuters was unable to verify the report.

"As a leader, being criticized is part of your job," he wrote in the LinkedIn post. "Great leaders recognize that debate and disagreement make you better and are part of the process. If you want a place where you can disagree (in a nice and clear way, of course) with people, HubSpot has the job."

As of Monday evening, Burke's post has earned more than 35.000 positive reactions on LinkedIn. While Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the media.

Other companies are taking a similar approach as is Hubspot. Amanda Richardson, CEO of recruiting software startup CoderPad, published an open letter to Twitter users.

Citing Musk's initial ban on working remotely, Richardson described Musk's takeover as a "show of shit" that was "incredibly frustrating, depressing and demotivating".

"At CoderPad, we believe your skills say everything. Not where you sit. Not if you sleep at work. Not working 7 days a week for 18 hours a day," she said.

Other major US tech companies including Meta and Amazon have also laid off thousands of staff in recent weeks due to the uncertain economic conditions.

But public criticism of Musk highlights strong demand in some parts of the industry for highly skilled digital workers.

A recent report from market analysis firm Gartner found high turnover rates and a spate of digitalization efforts across businesses and governments have created a "hyper-competitive" market for technical talent.

Mass layoffs and public resignations on Twitter have fueled fears the company will lay off vital staff and fears the social media "town square" could run into technical problems.

Michael Weening, CEO of US cloud and software company Calix, described recent events on Twitter as "disturbing", and promised new hires they would enjoy a company culture that "starts with our team members" in a similar post on LinkedIn.

"From our point of view, this is a great opportunity, because people who have not previously spoken to us are disappointed and looking," Weening told Reuters. "Toxic culture makes people say, 'Not anymore.'"