Twitter’s new head of human resources over the weekend tried to quell growing employee anger over Elon Musk’s dramatic cut in paternity leave.
According to two sources familiar with the matter, Walter Gilbert, who recently joined Twitter from Reddit and previously worked at SpaceX, informed employees on Saturday that he wanted to explain the modifications made to the company’s paternity leave policy last month. This update was reported by Insider.
Without any official announcement or contact with staff, Twitter changed an internal document on paternity leave, reducing paid leave for new parents to two weeks from the previous 20 weeks, Insider reported.
This is the latest reduction in benefits and wages that Musk imposed on employees in the six months since he acquired the company.
The two sources said that Twitter employees — whom Musk has cut by nearly 90 percent — are so angry about the change that they are openly talking about quitting.
They said the email Gilbert sent over the weekend sounded like an attempt to back away from the new hard line on paternity leave.
He told staff that “parting parents” would be allowed 12 weeks of paid leave “subject to internal requirements”. However, The policy is confusing workers who are unsure about its current or future status.
One source believes that even the employees at Twitter who have been most supportive of Musk’s power grab are becoming increasingly frustrated with constant benefit cuts and unfulfilled promises while working more hours than ever before.
