Hundreds of Twitter employees resign after Musk's 'be hardcore' ultimatum
What's the story
A new wave of resignations has hit Twitter after Elon Musk's 'be hardcore and stay or leave with a severance pay' ultimatum.
According to internal Slack messages seen by CNBC and The Verge, hundreds of employees have resigned, choosing not to be a part of Twitter's cultural reset.
Twitter roughly had 2,900 employees before the Thursday 5:00 pm ET (9:30 am IST) deadline.
Context
Why does this story matter?
Twitter has become a leaking bowl. Mass layoffs and the voluntary exodus has made the company much smaller.
Those who have left include people who worked in critical areas. The pertinent question is, how soon can Musk replace them? It will be a tough ask.
Well, Musk is getting what he wanted - his Twitter. We will see what he does with it.
Resignations
Many employees chose to not be part of Twitter 2.0
In an email to Twitter employees, Musk told employees about Twitter 2.0, where they will have to be "extremely hardcore." He asked Tweeps to click "yes" on an attached Google form if they wanted to stay.
If they didn't, by the deadline, they would receive three months of severance pay, wrote Musk.
It seems that many chose to leave.
Paranoia
Musk is allegedly paranoid about employees sabotaging Twitter
After his ultimatum, Musk sent another pair of emails to managers asking them to meet with employees once a week or monthly. He has also warned managers that they will be fired if they allow remote work unless the employees are exceptional.
According to some former employees, Musk has become paranoid that Twitter employees will sabotage the company.
Farewell
Slack channel was flooded with 'goodbyes' and salute emojis
Twitter employees have been using a Slack room called "#social-watercooler" in recent weeks to let others know that they are leaving.
After Musk asked for "working long hours at high intensity," the channel was flooded with "goodbye" messages and salute emojis conveying thank you.
"I'm not pressing the button," wrote an employee on Slack. "My watch ends with Twitter 1.0."
Exodus
Resignations have hit key engineering operations
Some of the departing employees think that resignations have hit key engineering operations. They believe that Twitter may not recover from this.
"We are skilled professionals with lots of options, so Elon has given us no reasons to stay and many to leave," wrote an employee.
According to The Verge, Twitter recruiters are already looking for new engineers to join Twitter 2.0.
Twitter Post
An employee's farewell tweet following Musk's ultimatum
And just like that, after 12 years, I have left Twitter. I have nothing but love for all my fellow tweeps, past and present. A thousand faces and a thousand scenes are flashing through my mind right now - I love you Twitter and I’ll forever bleed blue 🫡💙
— Satanjeev Banerjee (@satanjeev) November 17, 2022
Twitter Post
Another Tweep decided to delete Slack following resignation
Ain’t all bad #hardcore 🤘 pic.twitter.com/L2tCas5jRg
— AODHAN FLYNN (@aodhan) November 17, 2022
Background
Several key executives are not in Twitter anymore
Now, a little background of what's been going on at Twitter. When Musk took over the company, the first thing he did was to ax the company's senior-most executives, including then-CEO Parag Agrawal.
He then fired around 50% of Twitter's workforce. This was followed by the resignations of other key executives, including privacy and security heads.
The company doesn't have a communications department anymore.
Twitter Post
Meanwhile, Musk doesn't seem to be affected by the resignations
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Twitter Post
Twitter's headquarters became the venue for an innovative protest
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