Nearly two years after Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter) reduced its workforce across trust, safety, and security teams, the company is now seeking new employees to enhance content moderation and platform security. According to recent job postings on X’s official site, the company is actively recruiting to fill these roles.
In the past month, X has listed around two dozen job openings, divided equally between its safety and cybersecurity divisions. Positions on the safety team include roles such as Director of Strategic Response and Government Affairs Managers, while the cybersecurity side seeks security engineers and a threat intelligence specialist.
These recruitment efforts mark a shift from the significant staff reductions that took place following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the company in late 2022. In an interview with the BBC in April 2023, Musk stated that Twitter had reduced its workforce by 6,000 employees over six months, leaving only about 1,500 workers. This wave of layoffs included drastic cuts to the trust and safety team.
Following an inquiry by Australia’s online safety commissioner in January, X revealed that it had let go of 80% of its trust and safety staff since Musk’s takeover. Before Musk’s acquisition, 279 engineers worked in trust and safety roles globally, but by May 2023, that number had been reduced to 55. Overall, the trust and safety team shrank from 4,062 employees to around 2,849, while the full-time content moderation team decreased from 107 to 51. Additionally, contracted moderators were reduced from 2,613 to 2,305, as reported by the Australian eSafety Commissioner.
Recent job listings suggest X is working to strengthen its safety team again, following its announcement in January to establish a new Trust and Safety Center in Austin, Texas. This center is expected to employ 100 full-time content moderators. Of the two dozen jobs posted recently, nine mention Austin as a possible location, while others are based in New York City, Palo Alto, and international offices in Manila and Delhi.
When asked about these new hires, including the current size of the safety and cybersecurity teams, X’s press team replied with an automated message: “Busy now, please check back later.”
The departures from X’s trust, safety, and cybersecurity teams have not been limited to lower-level staff. Senior leadership, including Chief Cybersecurity Officer Lea Kissner and Trust and Safety Lead Ella Irwin, have also exited the company since Musk’s takeover.
These staffing reductions have seemingly weakened X’s ability to protect its users and handle complex content moderation challenges globally. Last Friday, the Supreme Court in Brazil effectively banned X across the country after Musk refused to take down accounts spreading misinformation. Additionally, Musk has faced criticism for promoting controversial content, such as a podcast featuring a guest accused of Holocaust denialism and images from an AI generator depicting Vice President Kamala Harris in a communist-themed beret.
On the cybersecurity front, X experienced a significant setback during an X Spaces event hosted by Musk and former President Donald Trump, which crashed and was delayed. Musk attributed the crash to a “massive [distributed denial-of-service] attack,” though no evidence was provided to support this claim.
