[sagarkamat]

While I totally sympathize with the schadenfreude, I won't be surprised if Elon himself fully expected to do this. They still end up with fewer workers than they had before and now know for certain they people they hired back were indeed important for day-to-day functioning. Faster process than going through each employee's job function individually. And I won't be surprised if the severance terms were structured such that those refusing to come back now before signing their severance offers, are considered to be quitting and hence don't get their severance pay. But IANAL so not certain of that.

[_cenw]

Oh c'mon, this is not an Elon galaxy brain move. They could've just slowly laid off people instead.

And no, people got fired on the spot, some with dubious cause and against state labor laws.

[aeternum]

A slow layoff is terrible for morale. Much better to cut deep then bump the salaries/reward the ones that stay. A drawn-out layoff is a great way to lose top talent as uncertainty is stressful and they will begin interviewing elsewhere.

[sagarkamat]

The layoff emails on Twitter had a January separation date and severance would come later this week.