Twitter Job Cuts; Foxconn COVID Lockdown; Zillow Beats Expectations; Gmail Will Track Your Packages

Last report, I joked that lately the Week in Elon Musk could be turned to the day since he bought Twitter. In that regard, he hasn’t disappointed. Now, Reuters reports that Musk plans to cut about 3700 jobs there, or about half the head count. A couple weeks ago, he had threatened to cut 75%, but this was trimmed back to 25% a couple days later. Now, it’s grown again. Some will likely quit, adding to this number, as Elon is demanding everyone come into the office again…after Twitter announced earlier that they could work from home permanently. It’s worth noting that so far, employees have not heard a single thing from Musk…having to rely on his Tweets, the news, and private chats to try to figure out what’s going on. 

China continues to use draconian lockdowns to try to tamp down COVID. Now, they have imposed a 7 day lockdown on a huge Foxconn plant. According to appleinsider.com, substantial numbers of employees have been fleeing the area to avoid being trapped in the so-called ‘closed loop.’ Apparently food and medical supplies have been running low. Foxconn has increased daily bonuses from 100 yuan a day to 400 to try to stem the exodus. They say the lockdown will cut production of Apple products by 30%…but they intend to make up most of that at other plants. 

In spite of higher interest putting the brakes on home sales, Zillow Group managed to beat its 3rd quarter earnings. Geekwire.com says the real estate giant reported 3rd quarter revenue of $483 million, beating the expectation of $456 million. Their total revenue was down 12%, though, as mortgage rates rose past 7%. Zillow had shuttered their home flipping business last year and cut about 25% of their workforce then. As they are looking at the housing market to ‘remain challenged,’ they have cut another 550 employees…about 18% of the workforce there. 

The holiday season is upon us, and even more packages will be on the way. Now, Google is updating the Gmail app with simple package tracking. Engadget.com reports that if the order email has a supported tracking number, you will see the shipping status at the top of the message. The opt-in feature should be available in a couple weeks. Apple Mail has had a similar feature for several years, where you could tap on an arrow to the right of the tracking number, and a box pops up with the tracking details.