Twitter's Chief of Information Security Lea Kissner Exits Company Amid Mass Layoffs

Lea Kissner joined Twitter last year as head of privacy engineering and was made the chief information security officer in January.

By Agencies | Updated: 10 November 2022 23:54 IST

Twitter's Chief of Information Security Lea Kissner Exits Company Amid Mass Layoffs

Photo Credit: Reuters

Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion and took control on October 27

Highlights

Twitter's Chief Privacy Officer, Chief Compliance Officer have also quit
Twitter CEO Musk emailed his workers for the first time late Wednesday
Twitter has been under Musk's leadership for close to two weeks

Twitter's information security chief Lea Kissner is leaving the company, Kissner said in a tweet on Thursday.

Kissner joined Twitter last year as head of privacy engineering and was made the chief information security officer in January.

I've made the hard decision to leave Twitter. I've had the opportunity to work with amazing people and I'm so proud of the privacy, security, and IT teams and the work we've done.

I'm looking forward to figuring out what's next, starting with my reviews for @USENIXSecurity 😁
— Lea Kissner (@LeaKissner) November 10, 2022

The move comes in the middle of a large-scale layoff and product changes at the social media company under new boss Elon Musk.

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,55,700 crore) and took control on October 27. He then moved quickly to push out some top executives including Chief Executive Parag Agrawal and announced layoffs affecting about half of Twitter's workforce.

Chief Privacy Officer Damien Kieran and Chief Compliance Officer Marianne Fogarty have also put down their papers, the Verge reported earlier on Thursday, citing sources and messages on Twitter's internal channels.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the departures.

Meanwhile, it was reported earlier in the day that new Twitter CEO Musk emailed his workers for the first time late Wednesday to prepare them for “difficult times ahead” and ban remote work unless he personally approved it. Musk said there was “no way to sugarcoat the message” about the economic outlook and how it will affect an advertising-dependent company like Twitter, according to the email reviewed by Bloomberg News. The new rules, which kick in immediately, will expect employees to be in the office for at least 40 hours per week, he added.

Twitter has been under Musk's leadership for close to two weeks, in which time he has dismissed roughly half its workforce and most of its executive suite. The new boss has upped the price for the Twitter Blue subscription to $8 (roughly Rs. 650) and attached user verification to it. Musk told workers in the email that he wants to see subscriptions account for half of Twitter's revenue.

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