A New York Times article has claimed that Elon Musk has carefully planned layoffs to avoid properly paying staff at Twitter. 

To say the Twitter-sphere has been a bit crazy the last few weeks, would be an understatement. 

There have been takeovers, departures, re-appearances, fake re-appearances, Kanye West and a whole lot of bad language. 

A lot of this, but not all, is due to Elon Musk’s transition into his new role as “Chief Twit,” after purchasing the social media giant for measly $44 billion. 

The latest instalment has been an accusation from The New York Times that Musk would start layoffs before November 1st to avoid paying staff stock grants. 

“The layoffs at Twitter would take place before a Nov. 1 date when employees are scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation,” reads the article. 

“Such grants typically represent a significant portion of employee’s pay. By laying off workers before that date, Mr. Musk may avoid paying the grants.”

This information was shared on Twitter and quickly gained a response. One of those responses was from Musk himself, to which he bluntly replied:

“This is false.”

This follows a trend of ungovernable behaviour on the platform. 

Most recently, racist trolls have been polluting Twitter with the N-word, as a response to Musk’s push for free speech on the site. The usage of the word increased over 500% in a twelve hour period. 

Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Head of Safety and Integrity stated that “over the last 48 hours, we’ve seen a small number of Tweets that include slurs and derogatory terms. To give you a sense of scale: More than 50,000 tweets repeatedly using a particular slur came from just 300 accounts.”

“Twitter’s policies haven’t changed,” continued Roth. “Hateful conduct has no place here. And we’re taking steps to put a stop to an organised effort to make people think we have.”

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