Elon Musk is poised to cut half of jobs at Twitter as he wields the axe at the social media company.
The world’s richest person is aiming to cut around 3,700 jobs, Bloomberg reports. Affected employees are set to be informed tomorrow.
Mr Musk will also reverse the company’s flexible working policy and tell all surviving employees to come into the office.
It marks the latest radical overhaul following his $44bn takeover of Twitter. The billionaire has already sacked the company’s entire board and ousted a string of key executives including boss Parag Agrawal.
5 things to start your day
1) Glencore flew millions in bribe money to Africa on private jets, court hears The SFO revealed the schemes ahead of the mining company’s sentencing in Southwark Crown Court today.
2) Musk suggests Trump will not return to Twitter before midterms The tech billionaire said it would take a few weeks to bring back previously banned users.
3) ‘Dedicated’ staff take pay cut to save electric vehicle champion Britishvolt praises employees as it confirms it can fund ‘the coming weeks’.
4) Virgin Atlantic job applications double after male crew allowed to wear skirts Gender-neutral pronouns were also introduced as part of Virgin’s “See the world differently” campaign.
5) BBC Radio 2 to abandon home in Wogan House All staff will leave the building in central London by the end of spring 2024, the broadcaster said, with most expected to relocate to Broadcasting House nearby.
What happened overnight
Asian shares slipped on Thursday after the US Federal Reserve shifted the outlook on tightening from short and sharp to long and high, putting to rest any thought of a near-term pause.
Investors were initially cheered that the Fed at least opened the door to a slowdown in the pace of hikes after raising interest rates 75 basis points to 3.75-4pc, by noting that monetary policy acted with a lag.
But Chair Jerome Powell soured the mood by saying it was “very premature” to think about pausing and that the peak for rates would likely be higher than previously expected.
Futures were now split on whether the Fed would move by 50 or 75 basis points in December, and nudged up the top for rates to 5-5.25pc likely by May. They also imply little chance of a rate cut until December 2023.
All this was not what the equity markets wanted to hear and Wall Street fell sharply after Mr Powell’s comments. Early on Thursday, S&P 500 futures had edged up 0.1pc, while Nasdaq futures added 0.2pc.
EUROSTOXX 50 futures followed the overnight move and fell 0.8pc, while FTSE futures lost 0.6pc.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 1.5pc, with South Korea down 0.6pc.
Japan’s Nikkei was closed for a holiday, but futures were trading around 300 points below Wednesday’s cash close.
Chinese blue chips eased 0.7pc after a survey of the service sector showed activity contracted due to Covid restrictions with the Caixin PMI dropping to 48.4.
