Elon Musk may be facing a huge crisis at Twitter. He has already fired about half of the company’s workforce, and the majority of the remaining employees have reportedly opted to leave too. This is after Musk gave them an ultimatum to be prepared for difficult times ahead.
Twitter employees offer mass resignation
In his ultimatum, Elon Musk said Twitter employees who stay will need to commit to long hours of high-intensity work every day, from the office. Calling the company a “hardcore new Twitter,” he said, “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade”. Employees had until 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday to sign up for the new Twitter. Those who opted not to stay would be fired with three months of severance pay.
It seems Musk didn’t estimate how messed up the company is right now. According to Fortune reporter Kylie Robison, almost 75 percent of the remaining Twitter employees have decided to leave with severance pay. If true, Twitter will be left with less than 1,000 employees globally. That’s down almost 88 percent from around 7,400 employees it had at the beginning of this month. The remaining ones are mostly folks staying in foreign countries on visas. They don’t have choices and are forced to stick with a messy Twitter.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk seems to have held off yesterday’s deadline to fire employees who opted not to stay. Hours after the deadline passed, everyone still had access to their systems. Employee’s badge access has been reportedly disabled until Monday, but the company-issued laptops haven’t been locked yet. Robison claims that Musk had called an urgent meeting of about 4,000 employees deemed critical for the company’s future before yesterday’s deadline. But the meeting never happened.
By the looks of it, the Twitter boss is trying to convince “top” employees to stay. But it may be a difficult task since top talents are always likely to find employment elsewhere. If 75 percent of the remaining employees have indeed opted to leave, Musk may not fire them all. But Twitter is surely in crisis at the moment.
Someone projected anti-Musk messages onto the Twitter HQ building
While Elon Musk battles an employee crisis at Twitter, someone projected messages against him at the company’s headquarters building in San Francisco. Photos and videos shared on Twitter show messages like Musk’s hellscape, #StopToxicTwitter, launching to bankruptcy, and even some derogatory remarks about the multi-billionaire.
Someone is projecting multiple messages onto Twitter headquarters building in SF from a neighboring building. pic.twitter.com/VuFqLvDyxT
— Gia Vang (@Gia_Vang) November 18, 2022
All of this comes as Twitter thousands of employees happily leave Twitter. The precise figure is not known yet, but not many people seemingly want to work with Elon Musk. Several of them have announced their departure on Twitter as Musk’s deadline passed on Thursday. “I may be #exceptional, but gosh darn it, I’m just not #hardcore,” an employee said referring to Musk’s “hardcore new Twitter.”
Meanwhile, the FTC is weighing an investigation into Musk and Twitter over this chaos. Threats of bankruptcy are looming large too, as advertisers flee the platform. Time will tell if Musk can hold the social network together and sail it through the storm.
Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters has gone hardcore tonight. #TwitterTakeover pic.twitter.com/DoG5pDD4AD
— Muskrat McRatfu*ker needs to resign as CEO (@christoq) November 18, 2022
2022-11-19 15:08:49