Twitter Is Reportedly Begging Dozens of Laid-Off Employees to Come Back

UPDATE, 4:55 pm: CNN reported late Sunday afternoon that Twitter is delaying the roll-out of its announced $8 “blue check” program until after the midterms.

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover is going about as well as one might expect.

In addition to announcing that the platform would now be giving out blue “verification” checks to anyone who feels like paying $8 a month, Musk laid off nearly 3,700 people on Friday—roughly half the company—saying the move was necessary to make Twitter profitable.

But Bloomberg reported on Sunday that, in the two days that followed, the company actually reached out to many of those laid-off employees to ask them to come back:

Some of those who are being asked to return were laid off by mistake, according to two people familiar with the moves. Others were let go before management realized that their work and experience may be necessary to build the new features Musk envisions, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

Reporter Casey Newton shared the Slack message some employees received over the weekend.

The move comes after Musk complained that Twitter has had a “massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers.”

A new feature launched in October that “adds context” to certain tweets fact-checked him on this: “Multiple advertisers have confirmed they are pausing spending while they see what direction Elon Musk takes with the platform,” the attachment to the tweet reads. “The growing exodus of advertisers comes amid concerns Musk will scale back misinformation and security protections on the platform.”

Brands including General Mills and the Volkswagen Group have paused advertising on the platform, saying they’re worried about the direction it will take under Musk. The use of the N-word on Twitter reportedly spiked by 500 percent after he bought the company, for example, and Musk himself has already used it to spread disinformation about the attack on Paul Pelosi. “We have paused advertising on Twitter,” Kelsey Roemhildt, a spokesperson for General Mills, told CNN. “As always, we will continue to monitor this new direction and evaluate our marketing spend.”

A number of pregnant or post-partum women who worked at Twitter have used the site to announce they were laid off on Friday.

It’s unclear if any of these women are included among those the company is reportedly asking back. Twitter did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.