You've probably heard the rumors. Maybe you saw a stray headline while scrolling through your feed or heard a snippet of a podcast about the "chaos" at the company formerly known as Twitter. The numbers get thrown around like confetti: 1,000 here, 6,000 there, an 80% gutting. People are constantly asking: did Elon Musk fire 2,000 employees at X, or was it actually way worse?
Honestly, the answer is a mix of "yes" and "that’s just the tip of the iceberg."
When Musk walked into that San Francisco headquarters carrying a literal porcelain sink in October 2022, the company had roughly 7,500 to 8,000 people on the payroll. By the time the dust settled a few months later, that number had plummeted to around 1,500. We aren't just talking about a "round of layoffs." This was a corporate demolition.
The 2,000 Figure: Breaking Down the Rounds
If you're looking for a specific moment where exactly 2,000 people were let go, you have to look at the timeline. It wasn't one single "Red Wedding" event; it was a series of rapid-fire strikes.
First, there was the massive November 2022 cut. Musk slashed about 3,700 jobs in one go—roughly half the company. Then came the "hardcore" ultimatum. Musk sent that famous midnight email telling staff they needed to commit to an intense work culture or leave with three months of severance. Hundreds, if not over a thousand, chose the exit.
By February 2023, reports surfaced that Musk had fired another 200 staff members. This group included high-profile names like Esther Crawford, the product lead who had famously slept on the office floor to meet Musk's deadlines.
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So, did he fire 2,000? Well, if you count the people who were pushed out through "voluntary" resignations and the smaller, targeted engineering cuts that followed the initial 3,700, you easily pass that 2,000 mark. In fact, the total number of people who left X since the takeover is closer to 6,000.
Why the 2,000 Number Stuck
- The "Remaining" Workforce: At one point in early 2023, internal records suggested only about 2,000 "full-time" employees were left.
- Trust and Safety: A specific report from Australia’s eSafety Commission revealed that over 1,000 "trust and safety" staff (including contractors) were cut.
- The 2024 Engineering Rumors: Even as recently as late 2024, reports from platforms like Blind suggested Musk was looking to trim another significant chunk of the engineering department.
The Logic (Or Lack Thereof) Behind the Cuts
Musk’s reasoning was basically that the company was a "plane headed for the ground at high speed with the engines on fire." He claimed Twitter was losing over $4 million a day. He called it "right-sizing."
From a business perspective, he wanted to see if the site could stay upright with a skeleton crew. He’s obsessed with the idea of "meritocracy" and "extremely hardcore" work. To him, if you weren't writing code or selling ads directly, you were probably "redundant."
But the execution? Kinda messy.
There were stories of people finding out they were fired because they couldn't log into their laptops. Some were accidentally fired and then asked to come back 48 hours later because they were the only ones who knew how a specific part of the code worked. It wasn't exactly a surgical operation. It was more like using a chainsaw to prune a bonsai tree.
The Legal Aftermath and the $500 Million Question
You can't just fire 6,000 people and expect everyone to walk away quietly.
A massive legal battle ensued. Former employees, led by people like Courtney McMillian (who was Twitter’s head of total rewards), filed a class-action lawsuit claiming they were owed $500 million in severance. They argued that under the pre-Musk severance plan, they were entitled to much more than the one or two months of pay they actually received.
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For a while, Musk was winning. In July 2024, a federal judge dismissed the ERISA-based lawsuit. But the tide shifted. By August 2025, reports confirmed that X Corp had reached a tentative settlement with thousands of former staff. While the exact dollar amount is often kept under wraps in these settlements, it’s clear that the "cost-cutting" of the layoffs came with a massive legal bill years later.
What X Looks Like Today (January 2026)
So, where does the headcount stand now?
Surprisingly, X has been rehiring—sorta. As of early 2026, the employee count is estimated to be around 2,800 people. That’s an increase from the 1,500-person low point in 2023, but it’s still nearly 65% smaller than the company Musk bought.
The focus has shifted. They are hiring for AI (Grok), payment systems, and video infrastructure. But the "bloat" of the old days? That's gone for good.
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Actionable Insights: Lessons from the X Layoffs
Whether you’re a business owner or an employee, there’s a lot to learn from this chaos.
- Severance is a Legal Minefield: If you’re a business owner, realize that "discretionary" severance isn't always as discretionary as you think if there’s a written policy in place. Musk’s years of litigation prove that.
- The "Skeleton Crew" Risk: Yes, X survived with 1,500 people. But it also saw a massive drop in advertiser confidence and several technical glitches. Efficiency has a breaking point.
- Audit Your Own Value: If you’re in tech, the "X model" is being copied by other CEOs (the "Zuck" year of efficiency). Focus on high-impact, visible contributions.
- Document Everything: For employees, always keep a copy of your benefit plans and employment contracts in a personal file. You never know when a "sink-carrying" CEO might walk through the front door.
The story of how Elon Musk fired 2,000 employees (and then 4,000 more) isn't just a news tidbit. It's a fundamental shift in how Silicon Valley operates. It proved that you can run a global platform with a fraction of the staff—but the social, legal, and financial costs are astronomical.
To stay informed on how these changes affect the platform's functionality, keep an eye on X’s official engineering blog and the ongoing settlement filings in the California courts.