Twitter has notified employees that it will be “reducing our global workforce” on Friday, November 4th, according to an unsigned internal memo seen by The Verge.

The confirmation comes a week after Elon Musk became Twitter’s new owner and quickly started changing how the company operates and its product roadmap. Since then, speculation about the timing and scope of the expected layoffs has run rampant inside Twitter.

Employees will receive an email by 9AM PST on November 4th confirming whether they have been laid off or not, according to the internal memo, which also states that employee badge access to Twitter’s offices will be shut off “temporarily.”

“We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted,” the memo reads. “Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.”

While the memo doesn't detail how many employees will lose their jobs, Musk is expected to cut roughly half of Twitter’s roughly 7,500-person workforce. His team of outside advisors has spent the last week determining which engineers and technical managers to keep based largely on their recent contributions to Twitter’s codebase, according to employees involved in the discussions.

The layoffs are part of Musk’s push to reign in Twitter’s costs. Back in June, before he initially tried to get out of his deal to buy Twitter, he told employees: “Right now, the costs exceed the revenue. So that’s not a great situation to be in. And so there would have to be some rationalization of headcount and expenses to have revenue be greater than cost. Otherwise, Twitter is simply not viable or can’t grow.”

After employees received the memo confirming layoffs would begin, many began quickly trying to unlink their Twitter accounts from their work email addresses — a company-mandated policy that also requires physical keys for two-factor authentication.

In Twitter’s Slack and group chats, other employees complained about the lack of internal communication from Musk and Twitter’s other leaders over the past week. “I truly wish you all well - for your sake, for the sake of your teams, and for the sake of the many people and communities this product serves,” one data scientist wrote in a Slack message addressed to leadership that was seen by The Verge. “But I also hope [the] failure of this past week hangs heavy on you to remind you to do better.”

You can read the full Twitter memo to employees below:

Team,

In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.

Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder.

- If your employment is not impacted, you will receive a notification via your Twitter email.

- If your employment is impacted, you will receive a notification with next steps via your personal email.

- If you do not receive an email from twitter-hr@ by 5PM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, please email peoplequestions@twitter.com.

To help ensure the safety of each employee as well as Twitter systems and customer data, our offices will be temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended. If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home.

We acknowledge this is an incredibly challenging experience to go through, whether or not you are impacted. Thank you for continuing to adhere to Twitter policies that prohibit you from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.

We are grateful for your contributions to Twitter and for your patience as we move through this process.

Thank you.

Twitter