Elon Musk planning to cut down Twitter's paid parental leaves from 4 months to 2 weeks

By Abhik SenguptaElon Musk’s Twitter is reportedly taking another harsh measure to mitigate expenses after laying off 50 per cent of the workforce. According to a tweet by The New York Times’s tech reporter Kate Conger, Twitter will now offer only two weeks of paid parental leave, down from 20 weeks (four months). The report citing “internal docs” notes that Twitter is looking at the law to tweak the company’s parental leave policy. At a Federal level, the US does not have a law that guarantees workers paid leave. However, some states have placed measures to protect the workforce.

The tweet by Conger reads, “Twitter used to offer employees 20 weeks of paid parental leave. That’s being changed to whatever is required by law in the region where the employees work, along with a ‘top up’ of two weeks of leave, per internal docs.

Twitter has not confirmed the change in the parental leave policy. Reaching out to the company is equally tricky, since Musk has laid off the entire communications team. Twitter’s media email only replies with a poop emoji.

Musk has accused Twitter’s previous management of running the company like a non-profit organisation. Following his takeover in October 2022, he laid off half of the Twitter staff, and some more in the following months. The company currently has around 1,500 workers, down from over 8,000 until late September 2022.

Interestingly, Musk claims that Twitter does not need too many workers to run. Aside from layoffs, Musk has cut several employee benefits, such as free lunches to cut down costs. He has also let go of some of the Twitter offices, including those in India. The company even organised a special auction for surplus supplies earlier this year.

Twitter is also experimenting with a new subscription called Twitter Blue, which now guarantees the coveted Blue tick next to profile names. Earlier, the Blue tick suggested that the profile is of public interest and authentic. The current form of Blue Tick means the user is subscribed to Twitter’s subscription and has verified his/her mobile number.

Meanwhile, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey believes that Musk is not the right person for Twitter. Dorsey contradicted his old statement for Musk at the time of the Twitter acquisition last year.

“Nor do I think he acted right after realising his timing was bad. Nor do I think the board should have forced the sale. It all went south. But it happened and we all can do now is build something to avoid that ever happening again. So I am happy Jay and team and nots devs exist and building it,” Dorsey said.