Twitter set to make further cuts to remaining Australian team

Posted on 12 January 2023

The Australian employees who were left following that first round of cuts were those selling advertising

Twitter is on the path to ceasing all physical operations in Australia as the platform makes further cuts to its local staff, reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

This comes as no surprise, as its owner Elon Musk cut more than half of Twitter Australia’s team of more than 40 as part of global layoffs, reported by the publication last year.

Musk has already let go of thousands of staff in the US and, most recently, in the UK, in a bid to save money.

The Australian employees who were left following that first round of cuts were those selling advertising. The publication noted that staff who were cut or left voluntarily were mainly in communications, news curation and government relations.

With no Twitter Australia team present, the platform now has no local workforce or representation to manage issues or communicate with the government if necessary, the publication reported.

Twitter’s cuts to staff in Australia and around the world comes after Musk announced his resignation as CEO of the platform last year.

The billionaire took to the platform to tell his 122.4 million followers that he would be stepping down from the role to focus on a different department.

Musk tweeted: “I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”

The final result from the 17,502,391 votes cast counted 57.5% said ‘yes’ to his resignation, while 42.5% voted ‘no’ to him stepping down.

Musk posted a poll the day before asking: “Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.”

The billionaire quickly followed that Tweet with: “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it.”

Musk bought the social media platform in October for US$44 billion, after an attempt to pull out of the deal failed. After the deal went through, Musk simply tweeted that “The bird is freed.”