Twitter Blue head Esther Crawford is out at Twitter

Twitter product manager Esther Crawford no longer has a job at the company following yet another wave of layoffs, as first reported by Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer. Crawford headed up various projects at Twitter, including the company’s Blue with verification subscription as well as Twitter’s forthcoming payments platform.

Alex Heath of The Verge confirmed Crawford and most of the remaining product team were laid off this weekend, leading to speculation that Twitter’s owner Elon Musk may be about to install a new regime at the company.

In a recent interview, Musk said, “I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financially healthy place in that the product roadmap is clearly laid out” before guessing that “before the end of the year” would be a good time to find a replacement for himself as Twitter CEO.

During her time at Twitter, Crawford emerged as one of Twitter’s most prominent product managers under Elon Musk’s leadership, and notably tweeted a picture of herself on the floor of Twitter’s office in a sleeping bag and eye mask. “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork,” the tweet reads.

Crawford “began angling for a bigger role” shortly after Musk’s takeover, as documented in this inside look at Twitter from Schiffer, Casey Newton, and Alex Heath. She also commented on Musk’s massive layoffs that halved the company’s workforce last year, and at the time wrote on Slack that “drastic cuts were going to be required to survive, no matter who owned the company.”

Update 3:53PM ET: Added additional information on this weekend’s layoffs.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/26/23615841/twitter-blue-esther-crawford-layoffs