Peloton CEO John Foley said in a Tuesday email that the 2,800 employees the company has axed globally will receive complimentary fitness classes for 12 months as part of their severance package. The Peloton membership, which typically costs $40 per month, comes in addition to more typical layoff measures including cash severance payments, extended health care coverage and help finding new jobs. “We are equipping every team member leaving Peloton with helpful tools to make them as comfortable as possible as they explore their career path post-Peloton,” wrote Foley, who dropped $55 million on an East Hampton estate in December. Foley — who will stay on as executive chairman after former Netflix and Spotify chief financial officer Barry McCarthy takes the reins as CEO — broke the news in a companywide email at 5 a.m. Tuesday. Some bleary-eyed employees found out about the layoffs from news articles before seeing Foley’s email — and spent Tuesday morning scrambling to find out if they were among the 20% of the corporate workforce being axed. “There are folks freaking out right now wondering if they are on the [layoff] list,” a Peloton source told The Post. “Everything has been so hush-hush.” Laid-off employees will still be able to take classes from their favorite Peloton instructors, who the company says are not being affected by Monday’s cost-cutting measures. “The company’s roster of instructors is foundational to the user experience, and Peloton will continue to invest in its content creators for the benefit of its loyal and growing community,” Peloton said in a press release, assuring customers that the layoffs “will not impact the Member experience.” Peloton declined to comment beyond Foley’s note to employees. Monday is not the first time Peloton’s corporate employees have felt jilted in favor of the company’s instructors, some of whom have become quasi-celebrities and amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. In December, Foley hosted an invite-only holiday party at Manhattan’s swanky Plaza Hotel for some of his instructors — even after he nixed a companywide bash as a cost-cutting measure. Foley argued that the champagne-soaked event was a “personal party for our vaccinated family and friends to celebrate all NYC has been through over the past two years,” but some staffers still felt wronged. “All of the instructors and their plus-ones were invited to attend but companywide there was a moratorium on hiring and any holiday parties,” one Peloton employee grumbled at the time. “Morale is at an all-time low.”
