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Jack Dorsey has long been an open admirer of Elon Musk. Now, it seems, he may have been taking notes.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Dorsey announced<\/a> that Block, the payments company he founded that operates Square, Cash App, and Tidal, is cutting more than 4,000 employees, nearly half<\/a> its global workforce, taking it from over 10,000 workers down to just under 6,000. Investors responded enthusiastically, sending the stock up more than 24% in after-hours trading.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t the first time a major tech company has done something of the sort. In November 2022, Musk slashed roughly 50% of Twitter\u2019s staff in a single stroke after taking the company private, a move that rattled many in Silicon Valley and rewrote the unofficial rules for how far a CEO could go in one shot.<\/p>\n Dorsey was in an unusual position to watch it unfold. He\u2019d rolled his roughly 2.4% ownership stake in Twitter into Musk\u2019s takeover rather than taking a cash payout, making him one of the largest outside investors in what became X.<\/p>\n The two men have had one of tech\u2019s stranger relationships, with warm words giving way to public shots, then back again. Dorsey championed Musk\u2019s Twitter acquisition, then said Musk \u201cshould have walked away.\u201d He helped launch Bluesky, the decentralized Twitter alternative, then quit its board and called X \u201cfreedom technology.\u201d Both are also vocal Bitcoin advocates \u2014 Block and\u00a0Tesla each carry the cryptocurrency on their balance sheets.<\/p>\n Dorsey framed Thursday\u2019s cuts as a proactive, even empathetic, choice, and not a financial emergency. (The 4,000 people losing their jobs may see it differently.) \u201cRepeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead,\u201d he wrote on X. He predicted that within a year, most companies will arrive at the same place. \u201cI\u2019d rather get there honestly and on our own terms than be forced into it reactively,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The cuts are being driven, at least officially, by AI. Block CFO Amrita Ahuja said the cuts will position the company to \u201cmove faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work.\u201d <\/p>\n Techcrunch event<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBoston, MA<\/span> Salesforce and Amazon are among a growing list of other companies that have made enormous<\/a> staffing cuts<\/a> citing the increased gains they are seeing from AI, though a Forrester Research report last month cast some doubt<\/a> on how real those gains are versus the likelihood that many layoffs are financially driven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 9, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n