Elon Musk is now facing a new crisis at Twitter as a wave of employees seemed to reject his ultimatum of an “extremely hardcore” Twitter 2.0 or leave the company. Hours after a deadline for workers to check “yes” on a Google form accepting “long hours at high intensity, it seems a large number of employees have rejected Musk’s vision.
Exactly how many employees opted for severance over remaining at Twitter isn’t yet clear. The New York Times reported the number was in the “hundreds,” while other early reports suggest the number could be . The departures come after Musk already cut 50 percent of Twitter’s jobs in mass layoffs.
Twitter saw dozens of Twitter employees that survived the initial round. They sent farewell messages to their colleagues. One employee tweeted a video of a group of workers inside Twitter’s office counting down to the 5pm ET deadline on Musk’s ultimatum. “We’re all about to get fired,” he said.
Others tweeted messages alluding to Musk’s policies. In his Wednesday morning message, Musk had said that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
Musk was reportedly concerned about the possibility of a departure of any remaining employees as the deadline approached. Musk wrote a memo in which he said that he had resigned. some of his earlier comments banning all remote work, though he still said he would fire managers if remote workers on their teams weren’t performing.
But it seems the concession wasn’t enough for many at Twitter Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer Thursday that Musk and his lieutenants were struggling to figure out just how many employees had declined to check the “yes” box on his Google form, and that Twitter would be closing down access to its offices for a few days as an extra precaution.
New questions arise about the ability of the remaining Twitter engineers to keep the service running reliably after the departures. Current and former employees are already speculating that the latest exodus could further put Twitter’s ability to function This is especially important with the World Cup starting in a few days.
Twitter doesn’t have any communications staff. Musk, however, has not yet commented publicly on the resignations.
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