The future of Twitter is in question as many employees have left the company following Elon Musk’s ultimatum to work long hours in the office.
Key Details
- Elon Musk recently gave Twitter employees a big ultimatum—agree to work long hard hours or leave.
- Many workers chose to leave the company, which has potentially put Twitter in a bad position as it is unsure if normal operations will be able to continue.
- Twitter decided to close the office until Monday in a bid to figure out how to move forward.
Why it’s news
In the month since Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter he has been open about the big changes he has in store for the company.
Recently he gave all employees an ultimatum to either jump on board with his plans he has for the social media platform or leave—and many chose the latter option.
He sent out a company-wide email stating that employees could choose to either work “long hours at high intensity” or take “three months of severance” and gave them a Thursday deadline.
In the hours leading up to the deadline Musk tried to encourage employees to stay. He prepared meetings with staff to hear pitches on the future of the company and attempted to make compromises.
He even went back to his former decision of completely cutting out remote work for the company. “All that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring that you are making an excellent contribution,” he stated in an email.
All of the work was to no avail as many employees chose to leave the company. Some employees who were departing voiced concern for the company stating that they were unsure how it would continue operations as it is losing too many employees at once.
Twitter has shut office doors until Monday as the company learns to navigate through the big loss of employees and attempts to continue operations.
Backing up a Bit
Musk has made a large variety of changes to Twitter in the short amount of time that he has owned the company.
After the Twitter deal was finalized Musk began to immediately make his mark on the company by sending Tesla engineers to meet with Twitter product leaders to ensure everything was in place for his takeover.
He then fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. He also fired the entirety of the Twitter board and was named sole director of the company.
His next step—cutting 50% of Twitter’s remaining employees.
Not long after that he decided to start charging for a verified blue check mark on the app which stirred up a bot of controversy. The check mark was previously reserved for celebrities and other verified individuals, but now anyone willing to pay could receive one.
That plan backfired as many people impersonated celebrities and other famous figures resulting in Musk having to pause the program with hopes to restart on November 29.
These are all changes that have been made in the month since Musk’s acquisition and it is fair to say that many more will be coming in the future.
