New York
SME
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Bim Ali became pregnant early during her first child when Elon Musk, a billionaire, agreed to purchase Twitter. She worked on Redbird’s core technology team as an engineer. Ali stayed with Twitter through months of uncertainty, trying to ignore the flood of news and focus instead on her baby’s health.

“I was really happy, I loved my team, I loved contributing,” Ali said. “I was also pregnant, so [leaving] didn’t even make sense on any level” because that maternity leave might not be guaranteed as a new hire at a different company, she said.

However, Ali was fired in November shortly after Musk’s acquisition, and just weeks before she began her five-month maternity leaves.

January 4 marked Ali’s official separation date from Twitter, leaving her without health insurance, which her job had provided for her family. The baby was delivered a week later. She is now spending her time with her baby, two months after she gave birth.

“But I’m not being financially supported like I had planned,” she said. “We have to make some way of staying afloat.”

Ali is just one of many current or former employees of Twitter whose lives were disrupted by Musk’s purchase of shares in the company. Twitter employees endured a corporate circus unlike any other, complete with Musk’s threats to bail on the deal, his public clashes with Twitter executives, the potential for a high-profile trial between Twitter and the Tesla CEO, and finally the deal’s completion immediately followed by rumors of imminent mass layoffs.

Musk bought Twitter and cut half the staff. Then, he laid off more people while repeatedly warning of a possible Twitter bankruptcy. After more reductions late last month, Twitter reported that it now has less than 2000 employees, a decrease of around 7,500 since Musk’s takeover.

Former workers who spoke with SME said the past year has felt like whiplash: they went from working for a company whose culture they loved with a corporate mission they believed in, to hunting for a new job and worrying about the platform’s future under Musk’s leadership as he restored incendiary accounts and alienated advertisers. One former employee told SME following December layoffs …read more

Source:: Social Media Explorer

Author: Aaron