TIG Post

Tag: Twitter Africa

  • Elon Musk appoints new Twitter boss

    Elon Musk appoints new Twitter boss

    Elon Musk claims to have hired a new CEO to lead Twitter.

    On the social media site, which he had just purchased for $44 billion (£35 billion), he made the announcement.

    Mr Musk did not name the site’s new boss but said “she” would start in six weeks, and he would become executive chairman and chief technology officer.

    Reports said the incoming leader would be Linda Yaccarino, head of advertising sales at media giant NBCUniversal, which later confirmed her departure.

    Mr Musk has been under pressure to name someone else to lead the company and focus on his other businesses.

    Last year, after Twitter users voted for him to step down in an online poll, he said: “No one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive.”

    However, although Mr Musk had said he would hand over the reins, it was by no means clear when or even if it would happen.

    Skip twitter post by Elon Musk

    Allow Twitter content?

    This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.Accept and continue

    The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

    End of twitter post by Elon Musk

    Tesla shares rose after the announcement. Mr Musk has previously been accused by shareholders of abandoning Tesla after his takeover of Twitter and damaging the car company’s brand.

    “We ultimately view this as a major step forward with Musk finally reading the room that has been around this Twitter nightmare,” said Dan Ives from investment firm Wedbush Securities.

    “Trying to balance Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX as CEOs [is] an impossible task that needed to change.”

    According to the Wall Street Journal and Variety, NBCUniversal’s Ms Yaccarino was in talks to become Twitter’s chief executive. The speculation surrounding Ms Yaccarino intensified on Friday when NBCUniversal announced she had left the firm.

    Twitter did not comment on the reports.

    It is sometimes difficult to know when the billionaire and owner of Twitter is being serious.

    Last month, when the BBC asked Mr Musk who was going to succeed him as chief executive of the social media company, he said he had made a dog Twitter’s leader.

    https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.49.2/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

    Watch: Elon Musk says his ‘dog is the CEO of Twitter’

    But if Mr Musk has indeed appointed a female executive, it would make her one of the few women to reach the top of a major technology company.

    Women accounted for fewer than 10% of chief executives of tech firms included in America’s 500 biggest companies last year.

    Although Mr Musk has talked about paid subscribers to Twitter Blue, it is advertising that brings in the vast majority of revenue at Twitter.

    The new boss will no doubt seek to improve relationships with advertisers, and smooth their fears over content moderation.

    Mr Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, has said he took over Twitter to protect free speech. However, advertisers do not want their content next to misinformation or extremist content.

    He purchased Twitter in October only after a lawsuit forced him to go through with the deal. Upon taking charge, Mr Musk controversially fired thousands of staff in a bid to cut costs at the firm, which has struggled to be profitable.

    In March, Mr Musk said those efforts had paid off and the platform’s finances were improving.

    And last month he told the BBC that most of the advertisers that had abandoned Twitter immediately after the acquisition had returned.

  • Elon Musk to negotiate severance with laid-off Africa staff after legal threat

    Lawyer for Twitter employees who were fired by Elon Musk has revealed that the company has reached out to the former employees after a threat to sue over discrimination.

    An international reporter reporter, Larry Madowo received confirmation from the anonymous lawyer that the business had “finally agreed to talk with the laid-off Africa staff.”

    Madowo, who has been keenly reporting on the story, reiterated in a November 22 tweet, that the redundant staff “weren’t offered severance until CNN reported” their plight and that they weren’t “allowed to negotiate their separation terms until” CNN report was aired.

    Africa office closed down four days after opening

    The Africa office was closed four days after employees who had over the last year been working remotely converged at the Africa Headquarters located in Ghana.

    They initiated legal action against the new owner of the platform, Elon Musk, over discrimination and the imbalance in the severance pay they were offered compared to others who were laid off in the United States and Europe upon his takeover.

    Madowo revealed the contents of their termination emails in his earlier reports, which read in part: “The company is reorganizing its operations as a result of a need to reduce costs. It is with regret that we’re writing to inform you that your employment is terminating as a result of this exercise.

    “Your last day of employment will be 4th December 2022. You will be placed on garden leave until your termination date,” the November 4 letter read.

    Watch the GhanaWeb Excellence Awards nominees reveal video below:

    The staff hired a lawyer who was on the verge of suing the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, over this matter. They also reported Twitter to the Chief Labour Officer in Ghana over breaches in the way their appointments were terminated.

    “It is clear that Twitter, under Elon Musk, is either deliberately or recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana, is operating in bad faith and in a manner that seeks to silence and intimidate former employees into accepting any terms unilaterally thrown at them.

    “Without pressure from higher authorities, they are clearly not willing to provide a fair or just package in order to minimize the hardship of this takeover and the resulting loss of jobs on their workforce in Africa.”

     

     

     

  • Fired Twitter Africa staff to sue Elon Musk over sacking, unfair severance packages

    The employees of the Twitter Africa office in Ghana have initiated steps to take legal action against their employer, Elon Musk, over the imbalance in the severance pay they have been offered.

    This is in comparison to other colleagues of the microblogging site in other parts of the world, like the United States, where a proper outline of severance packages have been offered to the sacked employees.

    It would be recalled that at the start of November 2022, just a few days after the Twitter Africa office started physical operations from its location in Accra, all the staff of the office received termination notifications via their personal emails.

    The CNN’s Larry Madowo reported that this was so because the Twitter Africa staff had been locked out of their work emails as well as from accessing their working machines.

    “The company is reorganizing its operations as a result of a need to reduce costs. It is with regret that we’re writing to inform you that your employment is terminating as a result of this exercise.

    “Your last day of employment will be 4th December, 2022. You will be placed on garden leave until your termination date,” the termination notices to them on November 4 read.

    The earlier story also indicated that unlike other staff of Twitter in other locations of the world, the Africa staff received no indications of severances.

    “At least for the African staff, that email did not even mention them by name; it just said ‘see attached.’ And even though Elon Musk said everybody who got fired would be getting at least three months severance above the law – that’s in the US, those in Africa office didn’t get a next step, or if they’re going to get any severance at all, which some lawyers in Ghana are now pointing out could be a violation of Ghanaian employment law,” Larry Madowo added.

    But in an updated report by the CNN, it has said that the displeased sacked Africa staff want fairness in the severances they are being offered.

    The staff have since taken a lawyer who is on the verge of suing the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, over this matter, Larry has said.

    “They are asking to be treated the same way Twitter treated employees who were departing in the US and Europe; they want three months severance pay like Elon promised and other relevant benefits: stock investing, continued healthcare, and that sort of thing.

    “But they feel that’s not happened; they have not been treated the same way as everyone at Twitter,” he stated.

    The journalist also reported that it was only after the CNN’s first report on this subject that Twitter offered the Africa staff a severance pays.

    He added that the team got personal emails that claimed to give them what they called “Ghana mutual separation agreement and it offered a certain figure. They say this email claims to have been arrived at after a negotiation with the staff but they say they have actually never negotiated with anyone at Twitter.

    “In fact, they don’t even have a way to contact anyone at Twitter because their emails keep bouncing back. So, they’ve rejected that severance pay offer, they have hired a lawyer and have written a demand notice to Twitter, asking Twitter to comply with Ghanaian employment laws.”

    The Africa staff of Twitter have also petitioned the Ministry of Employment in Ghana to compel Twitter to do the right thing, he added.

    Here is a portion of that notice to the authorities in Ghana:

    “It is clear that Twitter, under Elon Musk, is either deliberately or recklessly flouting the laws of Ghana, is operating in bad faith and in a manner that seeks to silence and intimidate former employees into accepting any terms unilaterally thrown at them.

    “Without pressure from higher authorities, they are clearly not willing to provide a fair or just package in order to minimize the hardship of this takeover and resulting loss of jobs on their workforce in Africa.”

    It is worth mentioning that the Twitter Africa staff includes some employees who were hired from Nigeria and other countries and they want to be paid to move back to their countries.

  • Twitter Africa officially starts operations from Accra headquarters

    In April 2021, Twitter announced that it was establishing a presence in Africa and specifically chose Ghana to host its headquarters on the continent.

    The official announcement of the move read in part: “Twitter’s mission is to serve the public conversation, and it’s essential, for the world and for Twitter, to increase the number of people who feel comfortable participating in it.

    “Today (April 12, 2022), in line with our growth strategy, we’re excited to announce that we are now actively building a team in Ghana.”

    The company subsequently rolled out vacancies and recruited staff, but it turned out that most of them were working from their respective countries as the headquarters was being set up.

    On November 1, 2022, a senior partner manager of the Africa office announced that the headquarters in Accra had been opened.

    According to the official who goes by the handle @mistameister, all staff left their respective home desks to work from the headquarters for the first time.

    “A year ago Twitter entered Africa via Ghana. Today we officially opened Twitter’s Africa HQ in Accra, and for the first time all Tweeps in the region left their home desks and convened to work as #OneTeam,” he captioned a tweet accompanied by a photo of the team.

    Why Twitter chose Ghana?

    As a champion of democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate.

    Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa.

     

    Source: