No Twitter jobs for Nigeria as Musk cuts jobs in Africa

Elon Musk’s plan to cut jobs at Twitter by half will affect workers in Africa, sources have told BusinessDay.

It may also put an end to expectations by the Nigerian government that Twitter intends to open an office as part of supposed agreements that the microblogging will have more presence in Africa’s most populous country.

The content moderation unit in Twitter office in Ghana are among the most affected and sources say there is more to come. The Ghana office was opened in April 2021 to serve as the headquarters of the company in Africa.

Musk, who took control of the company following a $44 billion acquisition, has gone on a sack spree, starting with the CEO and the CFO. Reports say the new owner who describes himself as the Chief Twit, plans to sack about 3,700, representing half of the social media company’s workforce as part of measures to drive down cost of operations and give Twitter a chance at profitability. There are 7500 workers at Twitter.

Read also: Twitter Blue badge to now cost N3,508, says Musk

The affected workers will be informed on Friday about the decision. The decision is believed to be backed by Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, one of the investors that backed Musk’s acquisition of the microblogging platform.

Zhao through Binance invested $500m (£441m) in Twitter as part of Musk’s $44bn takeover, which completed last week.

“I do feel that Twitter, given the 7,500 people they have, the amount of new features that have been rolled out is quite slow,” said Zhao, a regular user of the platform with 7.2 million followers.

The news of the job cuts in Africa further puts question mark on the claims of the Nigerian that it did meet with Twitter executives and secured agreements of an office and employment opportunities for Nigerians. Twitter has never confirmed nor denied it had an agreement with the Nigerian government.

In September a company spokesperson told BusinessDay that there were no plans by the company for an office in Nigeria.