Departing Twitter employees say layoffs have started as Elon Musk takes over

On Elon Musk’s first day in control of Twitter, the company has started laying off employees, including data engineers, self-identified former employees told CNBC.

A person who walked out of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters and identified themselves as a Twitter data engineer said they were just laid off by their director in-person.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment about layoffs.

Musk finally took over the company on Thursday, ending a months-long legal saga. The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO initially agreed to buy the company for $44 billion, but soon after tried to get out of the deal because he claimed Twitter was not forthcoming enough about spam accounts on the platform. Twitter has denied that and went to court to try to get Musk to complete the deal.

Prior to the original trial date earlier this month, Musk agreed once again to close the deal. The judge gave Musk until Friday at 5 p.m. to close the deal, or else set a new trial date.

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