When Elon Musk trimmed Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce to 2,300, most tech executives took note. If Musk could keep the service running with one-third of the staff, they could probably trim generously as well. Quietly and not so quietly, these leaders spoke encouragingly of Twitter’s post-layoff performance. They even coined a term for the ousted employees: “Surplus Elites.”
But while Twitter’s service has held up well, its revenue operation is in crisis. Laid-off sales reps have disappeared on their advertisers — ”ghosted,” as one put it — leading many to pull spending or pause completely. In the fourth quarter, Twitter felt the drawback. Its revenue dropped