- Elon Musk instructed Twitter employees to sign-up for an “extremely difficult” future.
- The offer was declined by less than half the company.
- Musk and company leaders are now trying to persuade some people to stay.
The new vision of Elon Musk for Twitter was not appealing to most people who left the company.
According to a person who is familiar with the company’s processes, less than half the company’s remaining approximately 4,000 employees opted to leave and sign up to Musk’s Twitter 2.0. This vision of Musk’s company was presented to him in a brief email on Tuesday. With that, less than 2000 employees are expected to leave.
Musk requested that Twitter employees who are interested in joining his “extremely tough” Twitter version click on a link before Thursday at 5 PM ET or they would be subject to a voluntary layoff. Musk and his transition team were taken by surprise when so many workers turned down the offer, according to another source familiar with the matter.
Musk and other company leaders began to get nervous as the deadline approached. With so few people signing up, Musk and others asked team managers for lists to identify who they felt was “critical” or “a flight threat” to Twitter’s future. The lists were in hand by Thursday and vice presidents and Musk made phone calls to engineers who had not signed up to continue their work. According to a source familiar with the matter, they were not offered additional money but were given information about Musk’s vision for Twitter and its potential growth.
One employee stated that it worked for some people but not all. According to the employee, it seemed to work better in persuading people to stay. The method involved having colleagues who had already decided that they would stay on to speak to their colleagues who did not sign-up.
However, Twitter is expected to be down more than 2,000 employees in the next two weeks following Musk’s mass layoffs of approximately 3,500 workers. Two people familiar with the discussions say that many workers who refused to sign up for Twitter 2.0 consulted lawyers before they made their decision.
Musk’s deadline was met and Twitter’s largest Slack channel became “flooded again”, according to an ex-employee. It is now a company symbol to say goodbye to coworkers. People used it to quickly say goodbye when they were laid off or locked out.
Are you a Twitter employee, or do you have insight to share with others? Kali Hays can be reached at khays@insider.com for secure messaging. Signal at 949-280-0267, or through Twitter DM at @hayskali. Reach out with a non-work device.
