Twitter Inc’s head of French operations, Damien Viel, said he was quitting the social media platform, whose new owner Elon Musk recently fired top executives and enforced steep job cuts at the company.
“It’s over,” Viel tweeted on Sunday, thanking his team in France, which he led for the last seven years.
Viel confirmed he was leaving Twitter in a separate message to Reuters.
He didn’t elaborate on the circumstances of his departure and declined to say how many people Twitter employed in France either before or after Musk’s takeover of the company last month.
Labour laws in France prevent companies from firing permanent employees overnight.
France-based companies have to formally tell staff they aim to dismiss about their plans ahead of time, typically via a letter with acknowledgement of receipt.
They also have to respect certain notice periods, depending on the nature of the dismissal and the seniority of the staff.
For dismissals affecting several employees within 30 days, companies must also follow certain procedures, which entail informing staff, staff representatives and the ministry of labour.
This means the whole process takes at least several weeks and up to several months.
Twitter has had a bumpy ride since the world’s richest person took charge. It has cut staff globally by about half, while Musk has raised the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt.
According to report, Elon Musk, is considering laying off more employees, just weeks after he had laid off half the company’s workforce, Bloomberg reports.
The company’s operations have also been impacted after a staff exodus over Elon Musk’s ultimatum: either work in a “hardcore environment” or leave.
The fresh job cuts are expected to target employees in the sales and partnership teams of Twitter, according to Bloomberg.
Musk, the world’s richest man, asked the team leads in those departments to agree to fire more employees. Robin Wheeler, who ran marketing and sales, refused to do so, the report said. So did Maggie Suniewick, who
who ran partnerships. Both lost their jobs, as a result, reports Bloomberg.
Musk has come under severe criticism has come under fire for radical changes at Twitter, which he bought less than a month ago for $44 billion.
In one of his first decisions at the micro-blogging platform, Musk fired 50 per cent of Twitter’s 7,500 staff. He also scrapped the company’s work-from-home policy.
Nearly 1,200 employees resigned after Musk’s “hardcore work” ultimatum, forcing Twitter to close their offices till Monday.
Musk’s stumbling attempts to revamp user verification with a controversial subscription service led to a slew of fake accounts and pranks and prompted major advertisers to step away from the platform.