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‘Quality over wokism’: NYT says Elon Musk ‘brushed aside’ call to base layoffs on ‘diversity and inclusion’

November 13, 2022 | | Print Article

When Elon Musk announced he would have to dramatically cut Twitter’s workforce to stop the company’s bleeding, he was warned there could be “legal trouble,” and if he wanted to avoid it, he’d best be sure “people of color” weren’t disproportionately affected by the layoffs.

In today’s “woke” world of environmental, social, and corporate governance scores (ESG), in which multinational corporations put their advertising boots on the necks of any business that doesn’t bow to their ideology, the “suggestion” to Musk from Twitter executives feels more like a threat than sound business advice, and according to The New York Times, Musk responded accordingly: He “brushed aside the suggestion.”

That there is chaos in the birdhouse is undeniable.

As American Wire reported, just eight days after taking over, Musk began letting people go, with up to half the Twitter workforce on the chopping block. And just that fast, employees began turning to salivating lawyers.

“The scope of layoffs was a moving target,” The Times reports. “Twitter managers were initially told to cut 25 percent of the work force, three people said. But Tesla engineers who reviewed Twitter’s code proposed deeper cuts to the engineering teams. Executives overseeing other parts of Twitter were told to expand their layoff lists.”

According to The Times, it was enough to make people physically ill.

“One engineering manager was approached by Mr. Musk’s advisers — or ‘goons,’ as Twitter employees called them — with a list of hundreds of people he had to let go,” The Times writes. “He vomited into a trash can near his feet.”

That the cuts were coming should have surprised no one.

At the end of October, when asked what was the most “messed up” Twitter issue, Musk replied, “There seem to be 10 people ‘managing’ for every one person coding.”

And when the layoffs hit the news, Musk stated that he had “no choice.” Twitter was losing too much money.

Last week, Musk held an all-hands meeting with the employees and told them “bankruptcy isn’t out of the question.”

But, as the billionaire entrepreneur restructures his Twitter team, it is clear that he isn’t going to let woke ideology cloud his decisions.

“Twitter executives also suggested assessing the lists for diversity and inclusion issues so the cuts would not hit people of color disproportionately and to avoid legal trouble,” The Times reports. “Mr. Musk’s team brushed aside the suggestion, two people said.”

On his platform, supporters of Musk’s efforts in creating an unbiased, free Twitter applaud the dismissal, despite The Times’ attempt to make it sound ominous.

“Fire the people who are contributing the least to the company and/or the team. (Pretty sure Musk knows this.),” tweeted one user, who added, “Basing hiring/firing decisions on race or sex is still illegal in the US, I believe.”

“Zuckerberg fires 11 k employees from Meta, folks have no questions,” another noted. “Musk lets a fraction of that go, and everyone’s hair is on fire.”

“Good,” stated a third. “Racism or race should play no role in these decisions.”

And a fourth user summed up Musk’s approach in just three refreshing words: “Quality over wokism.”

And that sounds like a very good thing.

 

Melissa Fine
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