Days after taking over as the new owner of the most simplified social media platform Twitter, a business magnate and investor, and also the CEO of product architect of Tesla, Elon Musk has fired some individuals from their positions as part of a mass layoff exercise.
According to Larry Madowo, the Twitter Africa team officially opened their physical office the week they got fired.
“On Tuesday, after working remotely for about a year, Twitter’s Africa staff in Ghana finally opened the physical. On Friday morning, they were locked out of their email accounts, and their work laptops stopped working.
“They then received email notifications on their personal email accounts that they were getting terminated,” Larry Madowo explained.
The 20-member African team of Twitter received their termination notices just like other staff of Twitter in other parts of the world.
In their termination notifications, the team was instructed to stay put until their last day at the company in case of a necessary handover.
SCOOP – CNN has obtained the termination notice sent to staff at Twitter's only office in Africa – in Accra 🇬🇭
It was sent to their personal emails but didn't mention any of them by name. Unlike in the US, it doesn't offer next steps or severance pic.twitter.com/R868moImlh
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) November 8, 2022
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CNN also reports that there was no communication about service pay for the employees of the African team as communicated to their counterparts in the US.
“Typically, the remaining employees of Twitter will receive full payment and benefits until December 4 but until that time, they are not allowed to communicate with other staff, suppliers, customers or clients and they are to remain available at Twitter’s disposal in case they need to have a proper handover,” Larry Madowo stated.
“At least for the African staff, that email did not even mention them by name; it just said ‘see attached.’ And even though Elon Musk said everybody who got fired would be getting at least three months severance above the law – that’s in the US, those in [the] Africa office didn’t get the next step, or if they’re going to get any severance at all, which some lawyers in Ghana are now pointing out could be a violation of Ghanaian employment law.” he added.
Now with the effective layoffs of the Twitter Africa team by Elon Musk and Twitter, there is now a question about the company’s commitment to the continent.
When the initial announcement was made by Jack Dorsey, the then-CEO of Twitter, about the opening of an office on the continent, there was a lot of praise and fanfare.
“When it opened the African office in Ghana, Africans – more than a billion of us, felt seen, and now all of that seems to have all gone up in the smoke,” said Larry.
