Elon Musk Reportedly Shuts Two Twitter India Offices Months After Layoffs

Twitter has closed two of its three offices in India, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The social media company shut down offices in New Delhi and Mumbai but continue to operate its office in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru that mostly houses engineers, the report added.

Twitter, under new owner Elon Musk, fired more than 90 percent of just over 200 of its staff in India last year, Bloomberg had reported.

Musk had said in November that Twitter was facing “a massive drop in revenue” as advertisers dropped out. Twitter’s revenue for the fourth quarter fell about 35 percent to $1.025 billion (roughly Rs. 8,484 crore), a top ad executive revealed at a staff meeting, online publication the Information reported on Wednesday.

Last month, the company ordered at least a dozen more job cuts in Dublin and Singapore offices as part of wider cost-cutting measures at Twitter that saw layoffs of about 3,700 employees in early November.

Staff cuts so far, which also included employees working in the content moderation division, have stoked fears of a surge in hate speech on the platform.

Twitter was also hit by class action lawsuits in the US, but a federal judge last month said several of the class action plaintiffs were required to arbitrate their claims. Others did not sign arbitration agreements, so the case has remained in court. The workers claim Twitter refused to pay promised severance or give them the advance notice of mass layoffs required by law, which the company denies.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

© Thomson Reuters 2023