Hundreds of employees at Twitter have reportedly decided to resign from the company after CEO Elon Musk demanded that in order to stay at the company they would need to commit to “extremely hardcore” working conditions.
The New York Times reported that the company was in disarray Thursday afternoon as the deadline approached as “hundreds of Twitter employees appeared to have decided to depart with three months of severance pay.”
The news comes after Musk let go of approximately half of the company’s 7,500 full-time employees earlier this month in an attempt to cut out bloat because the company is not profitable.
“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk wrote in an email to employees this week. “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
“Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven,” he continued. “Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.”
The email instructed employees to click on a link if they wanted to be “part of the new Twitter.” The email added that anyone who did not click the link by 5 p.m. EST would “receive three months of severance.”
Musk and his team held meetings with some of the “critical” people at the company that they were trying to persuade into staying. There were questions about whether Twitter would be able to continue operating with so many key personnel leaving the company.
Twitter reportedly closed all office buildings temporarily until November 21st and suspended all badge access, the Platformer reported.
“We’re hearing this is because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company,” the publication said. “Also, they’re still trying to figure out which Twitter workers they need to cut access for.”
We're hearing this is because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company. Also, they're still trying to figure out which Twitter workers they need to cut access for.
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 17, 2022
This is a developing news story, refresh the page for updates.