AI affect: Twitter ex-boss sacked 4,000 employees in a jiffy

Twitter (now called X) co-founder Jack Dorsey has announced that Block, the financial services company he founded, will cut its workforce by 40 per cent due to AI-led changes.

Dorsey said on social media platform X that the company will cut its workforce from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000, with more than 4,000 employees being asked to leave or enter into a consultation-based role.

Dorsey said that affected employees will receive "20 weeks’ salary plus one week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of May, six months of health care, corporate devices and $5,000 to assist with the transition,".

He wrote in the X post, “We're not making this decision because we're in trouble. Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving.”

Dorsey said the job cut was a response to rapid changes in how intelligence tools paired with smaller, flatter teams enable a "new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company."

Dorsey said he preferred a single decisive cut in the work force over repeated rounds of cuts.

"Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead," he shared.

Several tech industry leaders have said that most white‑collar roles that rely on computers could be automated within the next 12 to 18 months

US tech giant Oracle plans to cut 20,000 to 30,000 jobs to expand its AI data‑centre capacity, while Amazon recently announced lay off 16,000 employees as part of its AI restructure plan.

A recent report from PwC India said artificial intelligence could contribute nearly $550 billion to India’s economy by 2035, across five priority sectors including agriculture, education, energy, healthcare and manufacturing.