Twitter fires 90% of Indians

The firing spree is part of global reductions by new owner Elon Musk.

The social networks’ India branches, employed just over 200 people, and the cuts left it with just about a dozen staff, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. The offices are located in New Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

India, which is a key growth engine for global internet companies such as Twitter, Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, due to its large potential pool of new online users.

However, the companies are facing “increasingly strict content regulations aimed at reining in big tech firms in the country.”

In India, about 70 percent of the jobs cut were from the product and engineering teams which worked on a global mandate, one of the people told Bloomberg.

“Positions were also slashed across functions including marketing, public policy and corporate communications, the people said. Globally, San Francisco, California-based Twitter reduced its headcount by about half or roughly 3,700 workers,” Bloomberg said, adding that Twitter didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Some of the most “febrile political conversations” amongst various competing parties in India take place on Twitter, with allegations and accusations taking over the social media platform by storm.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has over 84 million followers on the service.

“It is unclear how Twitter expects to moderate that discourse with its newly reduced staff in the country, which has more than 100 languages,” the report said, adding that the company has about 3,700 employees remaining globally.

Musk is pushing those who remain to move quickly in shipping new features, and in some cases, employees have even slept at the office to meet new deadlines.

As of Monday, Twitter has asked its fired employees to come back.