Twitter has shut down its Sydney CBD office and closed entire local teams, but its local boss insists the company is staying in Australia.

Australian Managing Director Angus Keene sent an email to agency staff in response to a Sydney Morning Herald article published this week that revealed Twitter was in the process of “ending its physical presence in Australia, cutting the handful of staff that survived its previous rounds of layoffs.”

Keene insists in the note that Twitter isn’t shutting local operations and is “committed to its partnership with agencies and their clients.”

He also said there have been no changes to the content and sales teams in 2023.

In November, Twitter fired more than half of its then 40-strong Australian workforce, leaving just 16 local staffers.

Twitter’s now-former deputy curation lead Katherine Gallo confirmed in November her entire 10-person Asia-Pacific global news team had been made redundant.

“Today, my entire team was laid off from Twitter,” Gallo wrote on LinkedIn after the firings.

“My brilliant curation colleagues tackled misinformation, contextualised topics of interest, including breaking news, politics, health, social justice, sports and entertainment, summarising complex conversations unfolding in real-time on Twitter.”

Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant slammed the firings at the time.

“The approach of culling employees who have particular expertise in trust and safety functions, with intimate knowledge of how the platform’s policies and tools work, potentially undermines the company’s ability to combat abuse, misinformation and harms in the future,” she said.

Twitter Australia posted a $2 million loss for FY22, despite local revenue growing 11 per cent to $14.8 million.

The company only paid income tax of $149,812 in Australia in 2021, a portion of the $1.3 million in tax it paid in 2020.

As with many overseas tech companies, Twitter is less-than-transparent when it comes to its Australian financials.

It did not disclose how much income it derives in Australia through advertising, only revealing it makes money locally through “marketing, business planning and research services to parent organisations.”