Hundreds of Twitter employees have resigned after Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk told them that Twitter will be “extremely hardcore” going forward, with employees expected to put in long hours at high intensity, says a report by The Verge. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” he said.
Musk on Wednesday sent out a Google form telling employees to respond by 5 PM Eastern Time on Thursday for all employees to respond “yes” on a Google form if they want to stay for what he is calling “Twitter 2.0;” otherwise, today would be their final day of work and they would receive a severance package. After the deadline hit, hundreds of employees quickly started posting farewell messages and salute emojis in Twitter’s Slack, announcing that they had said no to Musk’s ultimatum.
“I’m not pressing the button,” one departing employee posted in Slack. “My watch ends with Twitter 1.0. I do not wish to be part of Twitter 2.0.”
Twitter employees that spoke to The Verge said that given the number of people that have left, Twitter could “start breaking soon” and that it will be “extremely hard for Twitter to recover.”
Twitter has temporarily closed all office buildings and suspended badge access. Zoë Schiffer claims this is happening because Musk and his team are “terrified employees are going to sabotage the company.”
Bloomberg says that in the final hours ahead of the deadline, Musk attempted to convince employees to stay. Key staff reportedly were brought into meetings, while Musk also walked back his in-office work demands. Musk had said that all employees would be required to work from the office 40 hours a week, but now has reversed that edict, saying that working from home was allowed with monthly in-person meetings and managerial approval.