Parlement Technologies, the parent company of the far-right social media site Parler, is working with a skeleton crew after laying off most of its employees, according to a new report by the Verge.
Parler, a brief bastion of conservative social media, has been whittled away for months now, and it may not have much of a future. As reported by the Verge, Parlement began laying off people in November into the end December, when it let go of 75% of its total staff. The layoffs affected c-suite executives in charge of technology, operations, marketing, and more, leaving only 20 workers at Parlement and Parler as of today.
Gizmodo reached out to Parler on Wednesday to ask for comment on the Verge’s report but did not hear back.
Meanwhile, over on Parler itself, the company seemed to be living in a grandiose alternate reality. In an #OnThisDay post on Tuesday, the company celebrated its supposed return to glory after being kicked largely kicked off the internet for its role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in 2021.
“#OnThisDay two years ago, Parler was de-platformed by Amazon Web Services. After being #1 in the IOS store the day before, Google and Apple followed and removed the Parler app from their app stores,” the company wrote from @Parler. “Two years later, on our own cloud servers and back on the Apple and Google Play stores, #Parler has been rebuilt and better than ever.”
Considering that George Farmer, CEO of Parler and Parlement, hasn’t posted on the social media platform in nearly month — in stark contrast to his counterparts Elon Musk on Twitter and Donald Trump on Truth Social — it’s hard to argue that Parler is “better than ever.”
The platform momentarily returned to the mainstream last year when Kanye West, the artist now legally known as Ye, announced his intention to buy Parler after he was restricted from Instagram and Twitter for antisemitic comments. Ye, however, notorious for making grand statements and not following through with them, changed his mind about the purchase weeks later and backed out.
“In response to numerous media inquiries, Parlement Technologies would like to confirm that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler,” Parler said about the failed deal this past December, around the time of its layoffs.
Judging by the Verge’s report, it seems that Parlement has had a tough time looking for future opportunities for growth. In hindsight, though, the company’s struggles do explain why I was spammed with so many Parler emails about Melania Trump’s Christmas ornament collection.