Twitter layoffs begin with reports of mass firings by social media company

Twitter on Friday began the process of enacting major layoffs of its workforce, part of heavy moves being made by Elon Musk to remake the company after his historic purchase of it.

Company employees were posting on social media throughout Friday of receiving severance notices. Reports had indicated that new company owner Elon Musk was seeking to lay off up to 50% of the social media corporation's workforce. 

Twitter employees "began posting on the platform Thursday night and Friday morning that they had already been locked out of their company email accounts ahead of the planned layoff notification," CNN reported on Friday.

Musk "purged roughly half of Twitter's 7,500 employee base, leaving whole teams totally or near completely gutted," the Verge similarly reported on Friday.

Employee messages on social media expressed regret and wistfulness at the news of having been dismissed. 

"After 3 years, my time at Twitter ended," former Twitter Vice President of Engineer Arnaud Webber wrote. "I wanted to thank every Tweeps for making this experience amazing and memorable. Twitter still has a lot of unlocked potential but I'm proud of what we accomplished."

Yvette Thomas, a former senior engineering manager at the company, wrote likewise: "It's official I'm out. Absolutely enjoyed my time and being able to be me everyday at work. My team has been fantastic and grateful I had the pleasure of working with them."

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Musk and Twitter, meanwhile, with a suit in California court claiming that Twitter did not give its fired employees sufficient notice before their termination.