Ex-Twitter workers are left in limbo with hundreds in bills after Elon Musk layoffs and ultimatum exodus

When Twitter’s new proprietor, Elon Musk, determined to put off half the staff of the corporate he had simply purchased for $44 billion, it was apparent there can be points.

However in some circumstances, those that had been informed their companies had been not wanted have confronted a double indignity: They’re owed hundreds of {dollars} from the corporate with no thought when they are going to be reimbursed.

The size of Musk’s layoffs—which have now expanded to firing individuals who have publicly or privately criticized him—have left former employees in a type of monetary purgatory. And an e-mail ultimatum delivered by Musk to workers demanding they work more durable or depart seems to have backfired Thursday night, resulting in a mass exodus and even fewer employees to handle operations on the firm.

“Folks have put in bills for October, whereas we had been all employed…that haven’t gone by means of,” one former Twitter worker within the UK who requested to stay nameless, and was let go as a part of Musk’s preliminary layoffs in early November, tells Fortune. The worker has round $1,000 in unpaid bills, however says they know of others who’ve as much as £4,000 ($4,750) in journey bills that haven’t been reimbursed.

These bills have been incurred on American Categorical bank cards, and people workers at the moment are on the hook for late cost charges.

Screenshots of days-old discussions on inside firm Slack channels reviewed by Fortune present a number of individuals asking about lacking expense reimbursements, and confused about how the method works for laid off employees.

“I do know there are a number of individuals on this channel asking, however I’m persevering with to get extra individuals on my crew asking about what the replace is concerning bills,” one employee wrote.

“Very involved about how lengthy that is taking,” one other employee wrote.

Former workers say that group chats have been stuffed with ex-colleagues advising individuals at the moment owed bills to repay any quantities excellent to keep away from late cost card charges—but it surely’s not that simple.

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“Some persons are like: ‘I don’t have that cash,’” the previous UK Twitter worker tells Fortune. “’I used to be counting on Twitter to offer it to me.’ Individuals are in actually tough conditions right here.”

Funds and bills at Twitter are submitted by means of a system known as Concur, given pre-approval by a man-made intelligence, then despatched to a supervisor for log off. If the expense is accepted by the supervisor, it’s then processed and paid out inside per week or so.

The bills some laid-off workers are owed had been processed three weeks in the past, earlier than Musk took over the corporate. “Not solely has it not [been paid out], but it surely’s disappeared from Concur,” the previous UK worker says. “There are lots of people in Sign channels very frightened about not getting between £400 to £8,000 of bills again.”

Former workers have been frantically emailing addresses supplied to them after they had been reduce from the corporate to try to perceive learn how to get these bills paid—with no luck.

“Clearly everybody’s been fired,” the previous worker says. “So no one is getting any responses. I don’t know what occurs now.”

Earlier this week, Musk despatched a middle-of-the-night e-mail to remaining workers telling them that they might both decide to a brand new “extraordinarily hardcore” work tradition on the firm, or depart. Round 1,000 to 1,200 further workers are believed to have left the corporate as of a Thursday night ultimatum, and it’s unclear how many individuals nonetheless stay on the social media web site.

A present U.S. Twitter worker who nonetheless works for the corporate informed Fortune that certainly one of his expense stories had been accepted however not paid. One other wasn’t accepted by their supervisor as a result of their supervisor was laid off.

“The reply we’ve gotten is that they’re swamped since everybody rushed to submit bills as soon as layoffs had been recognized,” he informed Fortune. He estimates he’s owed practically $1,000.

“Lots of people are in all probability owed rather a lot [because] many used wellness and studying allowances,” the present Twitter worker stated. “Additionally heard of people who went on off websites or travelled so these could have it worse.”

Twitter doesn’t at the moment have a communications division, so Fortune couldn’t attain out for remark.

This story was initially featured on Fortune.com

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