Jack Dorsey apologizes to Twitter staff and takes responsibility for mass layoffs under Elon Musk

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has issued a public apology to staff after new owner Elon Musk brutally laid-off nearly half of the company's employees.

Elon Musk officially took over last week as the new head of Twitter, and has already made some major changes to the social media corporation - namely slashing thousands of jobs.

Ex-employees have been calling out the company online after being let go with little notice.

The billionaire explained on Friday (4 November) that he had 'no choice' but to cut numbers, since Twitter was losing over $4 million (£3.52million) per day.

It's reported that even some of the top executives at Twitter have been sent on their way.

In response to the backlash, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who sold the company to Musk this week, has apologised and taken responsibility for growing the company size 'too quickly'.

Posting on Twitter today (5 November), Dorsey wrote: "Folks at Twitter past and present are strong and resilient. They will always find a way no matter how difficult the moment.

"I realise many are angry with me. I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologise for that."

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In a follow-up tweet, he added: "I am grateful for, and love, everyone who has ever worked on Twitter. I don't expect that to be mutual in this moment...or ever…and I understand."

Musk has defended the decision to make such bold cutbacks, explaining on Twitter that "everyone was exited was offered 3 months of severance which is 50 percent more than legally required."

APFootage/Alamy Stock Photo

Earlier this week, there were also reports of remaining Twitter employees being told to 'work 24/7' to get Elon Musk's first order of business up and running.

According to Insider, an internal message to staff explained that a plans to revamp Twitter Blue were to be finished by Friday, 4 November.

It read: "This should be the most critical work we do this week. The expectation is literally to work 24/7 to get this out. Every function in the company is doing the same."

After completing his $44 billion (£38 billion) takeover of the platform last week, Musk got straight to work making a number of changes.

That includes controversial plans to charge verified Twitter users to keep their coveted blue tick.

The Tesla founder confirmed this week that people will soon be charged a monthly fee of $8 to maintain the coveted verified symbol.

Musk said this new payment system will give Twitter 'a revenue stream to reward content creators'.

There's already a chance that this plan could backfire on him, as people who already have the verification badge say they won't pay for it.

After just one week on the job, Musk definitely has his work cut out for him.