The boss of Elon Musk's Boring Company called Twitter managers to ask about employee performance just days before 200 people were laid off, report says

• The Boring Company's boss called Twitter managers last week to ask about staff performance, Platformer reports.
• Twitter then cut at least 200 employees on Saturday night, including four high-ranking managers.

The boss of Elon Musk's Boring Company reportedly called Twitter managers last week to discuss employee performance just days before 200 workers were laid off.

Steve Davis, a long-term associate of Musk, has been working with Twitter for the past few months to help cut costs at Musk's request.

According to a Platformer report on Monday, Davis called managers and asked questions like: "Who on your team is exceptional?" and "Who would you bet your job on?"

These managers later learned on Saturday that at least 200 employees were being laid off, including product managers, data scientists, and engineers.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Among those laid off were four high-ranking managers who founded companies acquired by Twitter before Musk's takeover, and who were previously on a "do not fire" list because it would be too costly to cut them, Platformer reported, adding that their severance packages included accelerated stock vesting.

The four included Esther Crawford, a director of product management — who was seen by some as embodying Musk's "hardcore" work culture — as well as Haraldur Thorleifsson, Martijn de Kuijper, and Leah Culver.

Insider's Kali Hays reported in January that Twitter was planning to let go of 50 more employees on its product teams, despite Musk saying in November that no more layoffs were planned.

Davis was initially tasked with cutting $500 million in costs at Twitter, but ended up cutting close to $1 billion, per The Information.

He slept at Twitter's San Francisco headquarters in a makeshift bedroom with his partner just a week after their baby was born, sources confirmed to Insider. His partner even sat in on meetings about Twitter's real estate situation while nursing their newborn, they added. His loyalty to Musk and success in bringing costs down has led to internal speculation as to whether he could be selected as Twitter's next CEO, Platformer wrote.

Davis started out working at SpaceX in 2003 and became head of The Boring Company in 2019.