TECH NEWS – Elon Musk has reportedly fired everyone who ran his one-million-follower Twitter gaming account. The account has not tweeted since the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, ordered mass layoffs throughout the company.

Remember Twitter Gaming? The official Twitter account debuted in early 2016 as part of an effort to “support the passionate gaming community and help leading gaming organizations and personalities deliver high-quality content to their fans and engage with them on Twitter.” But now, amid the chaos and hilarity of the first two weeks of Elon Musk’s one-man reign, it appears to have disappeared for good.

The Twitter Gaming account hasn’t tweeted since Nov. 3, a day before Musk cut the company’s staff in half. The layoffs, Reuters reported, affected several teams at the company, including communications, content curation, human rights and ethics. Some product and engineering teams were also affected by the layoffs. Shiraz Siddiqui, formerly the senior social manager at Twitter Gaming, confirmed that he was let go as part of the layoffs last week:

cool, get do one of these finally earlier than I thought pic.twitter.com/V5yIe9KVrB

— shiraz 🫡 (@shiraz) November 4, 2022

But it wasn’t just Siddiqui who was laid off: According to a new report from the Washington Post, Twitter Gaming’s entire marketing department was let go at once. That matches the current status of the one-million-follower account, which last tweeted on Nov. 3, a day before the layoffs. Before this, the account tweeted almost daily but has gone completely silent in the eight days since.

Games tend to make up a significant portion of Twitter’s total activity: According to the Washington Post, 1.5 billion tweets about video games were written in the first half of 2022, compared to 10.4 billion tweets about “news.” Twitter is undeniably a fantastic source of gaming information – I rely heavily on it for my work – and it’s also a great way for content creators to get exposure to a wider audience. This all happens in isolation – you don’t have to follow Twitter Gaming to keep up with gaming on Twitter – but the account seemed to be part of a larger marketing strategy that is apparently catching on without warning or explanation.

Assuming Twitter itself doesn’t collapse and crumble to dust before the end of the year (and given what an absolute gong show it’s been since Musk took over, I’d give it a 50/50 chance), the Twitter Gaming account could one day be relaunched activities, under the direction of a new team, or perhaps Elon himself, if he can figure out the password. There have also been reports that after cutting too deep, Twitter is now begging some ex-employees to come back, which would be funny if it weren’t so sad and destructive, so maybe they’ll find some life there too. But for now, it’s gone: Collateral damage from the ongoing black hole collapse of one of the world’s most prominent social networks.

Source: PC Gamer