In CA the way silicon valley tech companies frequently handle layoffs is you're dismissed effective immediately, but still on payroll (including medical insurance, if any) for the aforementioned 60 days.

If the company is at all trying to appear graceful, they'll sometimes give additional time to the severance package, e.g. 1 week for every year of service at the company.

But in most cases the laid-off employee is no longer actively working at the company, access has usually been revoked, and so on. But WARN requirements have been satisfied.

Accrued expenses (like vacation hours and some other things) are also cashed-out to the departing employee. This, btw, is supposedly one motivation for some companies not tracking vacation time in favor of "unlimited vacation" -- it moves an accrued expense off the books and into informal "maybe never gets used" territory. YMMV.

Usually this "cashing out" maneuver is handled pretty promptly after the employee is notified of their impending separation; the company's motivation is presumably to clear the books and remove potential liabilities as quickly as possible. From the employee perspective, yes it may suck to be out of a steady paycheck, but they've been sent off with 60 days' pay to look for another job.

Seems odd that elon wouldn't just handle twitter layoffs the same way. If he isn't, perhaps he's assuming the rules (and laws) don't apply to him - there's apparently some history of that behavior.

"In CA the way silicon valley tech companies frequently handle layoffs is you're dismissed effective immediately, but still on payroll (including medical insurance, if any) for the aforementioned 60 days."

It said on the news that that was exactly what Musk was doing. Everybody is paid until February, supposedly, so I don't see what the fuss is about.

Yep, this is what I read.

It was also planely stated in the emails that I have seen.

Not sure what the lawsuit was all about. Land-sharks smelling money and jumping the gun, probably. Hopefully the Judge whose court it was filled in is in a hanging mood ...

"But in most cases the laid-off employee is no longer actively working at the company, access has usually been revoked, and so on"

That is standard practice in many cases. I know of places where they do that even if you quit.

While I have no sympathy for smug 20-something year old techies working in what is essentialy millenial daycare producing absolutely nothing. If Musk is really firing this fast then it is purely about turning a profit ASAP. He hasn't had time to actually understand the business and probably doesn't care. I still maintain he was just doing this to offload Tesla stock at the peak of what is essentially a stock price that will not be seen again for 10+ years just like what happened in the Dotcom crash.

Except he tweeted today that revenue has massively declined due to advertisers fleeing, and calls that a "free speech" issue. So I guess he wants the government to step in and force companies to advertise on Twitter against their will?

I think he will have to lay off a lot more than 50% of Twitter's employees eventually. Perhaps as many as 100% depending on what direction he takes the moderation.

He also tweeted he was taking Tesla private at $420 per share. It's hard to parse what he says through a filter of reality.

Uh, advertisers fleeing (though "pausing" as in "wait and see" seems to be the more frequently reported verb) isn't a "free speech issue", it's more like "advertisers don't want their product ads showing next to some hateful loathsome screed in 140 characters".

Turns out there's a difference. Flip a coin whether elob actually knows that, or if this is just another of his bad faith takes on reality.

You are a German company whose name literally begins with Adolph.

Your brand ambassador starts spouting antisemitic conspiracies and gets kicked off twitter.

The new boss of twitter suggests that these sort of bans will be reversed.

I would be putting my advertising head down - not starting an ad campaign that might be run alongside this guy.

CA is an At Will state. Just because the unions paid for WARN to be passed in Sac about 20 years means diddly. Did not stop all the manufacturing plants leaving the state. Typically the CA version contradicts the Fed version in several key places - so Musk wins. Then there is the whole can of worms of WFH and what constitutes a physical location of work.. This was not some industrial plant .

Just goes to prove the massive sense of entitlement and utter stupidity of so many dot com'ers. Those with half a clue would already have their resumes out and interviews organized. Its not like this has not been on the cards for many months now. For the rest, they will discover the hard way just how overpaid they were for what they actually did. Just like the previous generation in 2000.

When Orwell wrote that the future would be "a boot stamping on a human face - forever", even he could't imagine that some of the human faces would murmur back harder, daddy

Orwell?? Huh?

You obviously know zero about working in tech in CA. Its fast in fast out. Companies come and go. Project teams come and go. In the time it takes a UK company to make a decision that they might go ahead with a project a project team in CA would be up and running and could even be gone if some idiot VP in upper management has decided that the company needs to "refocus". Yes, I have seen that happen many times. UK company takes many months to make a decision. CA companies projects comes and goes. Or ships. In the same time period. If a project does not turn around in days its not going to happen.

And the UK is by far the most nimble county in Europe. Takes literally years to get decisions made in other countries. If you work on projects for starts-up (the successful ones) in CA at least half your clients will be gone in five years. One way or another. Almost all within 10. Most of mine get acquired.

If you want a nice predicable career you go work for the f*cking government. Or some big company mindless bureaucracy. Or stay in your podunk little backwater market. You dont work for tech in the Bay Area. The rather brutal churn comes with the territory. And always has. 9 to 5'ers never last very long. For a start people like me never hire them. We have a project to finish. Fast.

Twitter fires half its staff. Big deal. Its been on the cards for a long time. The people with good resumes will do fine.

Thank you, AC. Saved me from typing it.

"Those with half a clue would already have their resumes out and interviews organized."

They have.

I have half a dozen friends and acquaintances who have been (in their words) "whoring themselves out to twitter" for a couple years now. I sent 'em all a note this morning, offering them temporary work, should they need it. All except one already have offers elsewhere. The one has decided to retire.

It's a good thing no one saw this coming when an entitled idiot massively overpays for a tech company, online reaction to his suggestion of charging either $8 or $20 a month to keep a blue tick suggests that he really hasn't put much thought in to what to do beyond "free speech". It has been quite entertaining seeing his back and forth with AOC and Stephen King, both of whom have absolutely wiped the floor with him.

4 million awarded in a class action to be split amongst 4100 employees. In the US, half goes to the lawyers. 2MM split 4100 ways is $487.80 per person.

Call the kids, Martha, the farm is saved!

The suit wasn't filed for the former employees. It was filed for the law firm in question.

Musk companies have a history of large layoffs. Dot-com companies have a history of layoffs during acquisition. Musk announced the intention to buy Twitter in April. Seems like that is a 6-month notice right there! Way better than what the government requires.

Snarky Reg attitude aside.... This is a telegraphed punch a long time in coming. There can be lots of whining and gnashing of teeth, but anyone with half a brain saw this coming months ago. Those who chose to ignore it did so at their own accord. Might as well - if a job change is coming, might as well get cashed out on the way out.

There's some truth to this. Best way to leave a bad [company / job / boss / all the above] is getting paid on your way out.

Which is not to say you shouldn't keep your eye on the wall writing, update the CV, browse help wanted posts, etc. until your number is up, because you may not be one of the lucky ones who get the layoff severance package.

I've been in the workforce for a few decades by now, and I have yet to get the package from a job I wanted to leave -- I always had to resign. Near as I can tell that's the norm: most people aren't allowed to "volunteer" for layoffs these days, unless they're either in (probably senior-ish) management or they're connected to someone who is and will put them on the list.

I've heard and read of old school places like IBM offering voluntary retirement sort of programs, but I don't think that's very common in the US.

Let's see if I have this straight. Musk has just spent a ludicrous amount of money for a crap website whose only known value is in its broad user base. His actions to date seem to indicate a desire to alienate as much as possible of that base as rapidly as possible. I can only guess that Elon belongs to the Any Publicity Is Good Publicity As Long As They Spell Your Name Right school of image management. Either that, or the strain of living with the consequences of his bad judgement in tendering a bid for Twitter has driven him mad.

It'll be interesting to see if this seemingly quite peculiar strategy works for him.

Those being laid off are being paid until February, from what I understand. So effectively they're getting gardening leave which pretty much sorts 60 days notice. Also, as others have said, CA is an at-will state (in my mind being ejected from your job at-will without cause is just an abuse) so one could argue Elon Musk is actually being generous - but more likely he's just being careful.

Ireland has pretty decent workers rights laws.

While the Irish government have been quite relaxed about large tech companies paying taxes, large illegal redundancies are a different matter.

And unlike P&O, Musk xan't rely on a totally incompetent government.