• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs

2

Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998

3

Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: Avoid retiring early, study finds

1

Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs

2

Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998

3

Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: Avoid retiring early, study finds
Tech

Elon Musk lays off more Twitter employees, including hardcore loyalists: ‘Looks like I’m let go’

Steve Mollman
By
Steve Mollman
Steve Mollman
Contributors Editor
Down Arrow Button Icon
Steve Mollman
By
Steve Mollman
Steve Mollman
Contributors Editor
Down Arrow Button Icon
February 26, 2023, 2:29 PM ET
Photo of Elon Musk
Twitter CEO Elon Musk isn’t done firing employees.Marlena Sloss—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Twitter conducted an unexpected round of layoffs this weekend as the company struggles with plunging revenue and aggressive cost cutting under CEO Elon Musk.

The Information first reported on the layoffs, saying the company let go of at least 50 employees on Saturday across different departments, including engineers who help keep the social network running.

The layoffs also included “hardcore Musk loyalists,” tweeted Zoë Schiffer, who covers the company closely for Platformer. She added that the layoffs included “a ton of surprises.” For instance, she tweeted, among the laid-off was Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments. In early November, Crawford tweeted, “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork.”

One senior product manager, Martijn de Kuijper, tweeted that he’d been locked out of his email account. De Kuijper, who founded Revue, an editorial newsletter tool Twitter acquired in 2021, tweeted: “Waking up to find I’ve been locked out of my email. Looks like I’m let go. Now my Revue journey is really over.”

Fortune has reached out to Twitter and will update this story with any reply.

Since Musk took over the company in October last year, Twitter’s headcount has fallen by over 70%, and its chief source of revenue, advertising, has fallen significantly. 

The company has seen some technical glitches amid the turmoil. On Feb. 8, Twitter users across North America were unable to send messages, with an error message saying they were “over the daily limit for sending tweets.”

“Twitter may not be working as expected for some of you. Sorry for the trouble. We’re aware and working to get this fixed,” the company tweeted.

Musk has attempted to generate revenue in other ways besides advertising, but so far those efforts have done little to improve the company’s financial position. Among the initiatives has been Twitter Blue, a monthly subscription service that includes a blue verification check mark. That service got off to a rocky start when trolls used it to impersonate brands and celebrities. According to the Information, by the middle of last month only about 180,000 users had signed up for the service.

Many advertisers have been wary of where Musk, a self-described “free-speech absolutist,” would take the platform. That didn’t stop Musk from wading into various touchy topics this weekend, even amid the layoffs.

Musk came to the defense of Scott Adams, creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip, after newspapers across the country canceled it for comments they called “racist,” “hateful,” and “discriminatory.” Adams had described people who are Black as members of “a hate group” from which white people should “get away.”

Musk tweeted: “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians. Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.”

Musk also this weekend applauded a Saturday Night Live opening monologue by Woody Harrelson touching on COVID vaccines and the pandemic. The actor talked about one of the “craziest scripts” he’s read.

“So the movie goes like this,” the actor explained. “The biggest drug cartels in the world get together and buy up all the media and all the politicians and force all the people in the world to stay locked in their homes. And people can only come out if they take the cartel’s drugs and keep taking them over and over.

“I threw the script away,” he then joked. “I mean, who was going to believe that crazy idea? Being forced to do drugs? I do that voluntarily all day.”

Must tweeted in reply, “So based. Nice work @nbcsnl!” 

When one Twitter wrote, “Get ready for the meltdowns,” Musk replied: “Maybe they [media outlets] don’t realize that their propaganda is wrong?”

Musk also chimed in on the origins of the pandemic after the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the U.S. Energy Department was leaning toward the COVID lab-leak theory, joining the FBI in that regard.

When fellow PayPal alum David Sacks shared the article and tweeted that Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and others were behind a disinformation campaign about the lab origins of the coronavirus, Musk replied, “Exactly.”

Learn how to navigate and strengthen trust in your business with The Trust Factor, a weekly newsletter examining what leaders need to succeed. Sign up here.

About the Author
Steve Mollman
By Steve MollmanContributors Editor
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon

Steve Mollman is a contributors editor at Fortune.

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

‘Devin-kun’: Japan embraces agents as legacy code and a shrinking workforce create a perfect market for an AI software engineer 
AsiaAI agents
‘Devin-kun’: Japan embraces agents as legacy code and a shrinking workforce create a perfect market for an AI software engineer 
By Nicholas GordonJuly 3, 2026
10 hours ago
Chad Hurley and Steven Chen wearing suits
SuccessWealth
YouTube’s founders split over $650 million when they sold to Google in 2006—had they held out, they could have taken a slice of $550 billion
By Preston ForeJuly 3, 2026
16 hours ago
ds
CommentarySoftware
I argued with the father of open source for 2 years. Now the AI fight is the same — only bigger
By David SiegelJuly 3, 2026
18 hours ago
ashok
Commentary250 Years of Innovation
The greatest startup in history: What we can learn from America’s founders at today’s AI frontier
By Ashok N. SrivastavaJuly 3, 2026
18 hours ago
2
Commentary250 Years of Innovation
America’s secret weapon isn’t just innovation — It’s the freedom to fail
By Keith KrachJuly 3, 2026
20 hours ago
A $75 billion valuation, 75 million global customers and on its way to America—Revolut is London’s disruptor extraordinaire
EuropeLetter from London
A $75 billion valuation, 75 million global customers and on its way to America—Revolut is London’s disruptor extraordinaire
By Kamal AhmedJuly 3, 2026
20 hours ago

Most Popular

Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs
Law
Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips and The Associated PressJuly 2, 2026
2 days ago
Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998
AI
Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 3, 2026
24 hours ago
Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: Avoid retiring early, study finds
Economy
Economists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: Avoid retiring early, study finds
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 2, 2026
2 days ago
On Wall Street, analysts increasingly don’t believe the U.S. government’s 'misleading' job numbers
Economy
On Wall Street, analysts increasingly don’t believe the U.S. government’s 'misleading' job numbers
By Jim EdwardsJuly 3, 2026
19 hours ago
$25 billion CEO says one-hour interviews are a waste of time—he puts candidates through six hours of tests and wants them to order wine at lunch
Success
$25 billion CEO says one-hour interviews are a waste of time—he puts candidates through six hours of tests and wants them to order wine at lunch
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJuly 3, 2026
24 hours ago
Current price of oil as of July 2, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of July 2, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 2, 2026
2 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.