Twitter has fired a product manager who once slept in the company’s offices to meet deadlines set by Elon Musk. Esther Crawford led the social network’s Twitter Blue redesign following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition last year. She was reportedly overseeing Twitter Payments recently. The company has also fired Martijn de Kuijper, the founder of the newsletter platform Revue which it acquired in January 2021 and shut down last month. Overall, Twitter laid off more than 50 employees last week, Zoë Schiffer of Platformer reported.
Twitter laid off Esther Crawford and dozens more employees
Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October last year and immediately started firing employees. The company’s global workforce was reduced by more than 50% in just a few weeks under the new ownership. But, about a month later, Musk announced an end to the firing spree and said that the social network will start hiring soon. While we haven’t heard about new joiners since then, Twitter has continued to lay off employees. There have been several rounds of layoffs since Musk made that statement in November. A report last month said that Twitter has laid off more than 80 percent of its global workforce since Musk’s acquisition.
Worse yet, layoffs still haven’t ended. Twitter reportedly fired several dozen employees over the weekend. Schiffer claims that the number is “well above 50”. The latest round of layoffs has hit multiple departments within the company, including engineering. Esther Crawford is among the most notable departures. She was one of the few who accepted Musk’s “hardcore” work culture as part of “Twitter 2.0”. Just a few days after the acquisition, Crawford shared a picture of herself sleeping in her Twitter office. “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you sleep where you work,” she said.
When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWorkhttps://t.co/UBGKYPilbD
— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022
Fast forward to today, Twitter has fired her. Crawford is proud of what she achieved, though. “I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos,” she recently tweeted confirming her departure from Twitter. Ella Irwin, the company’s current head of Trust and Safety, responded saying: “Thank you for working so hard to help lay the foundation for Twitter 2.0 Esther. You will be missed.”
Twitter fires Revue founder after shutting down the newsletter platform
Revue founder Martijn de Kuijper is another prominent Twitter employee affected by the latest layoffs. The social network hired Martijn as part of its Revue acquisition a couple of years back. But, the platform didn’t take off as the company hoped for. Twitter eventually pulled the plug on it last month. It has now let go of Revue’s founder as well. “Waking up to find I’ve been locked out of my email. Looks like I’m let go. Now my Revue journey is really over,” Martijn recently tweeted. At this rate, we won’t be surprised if Twitter lays off more employees in the coming weeks. We will keep you posted.