Turmoil at Twitter: Musk “not super worried” as employees’ exodus continues
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid an alarming exodus of staff from Twitter, its new owner Elon Musk said he is “not super worried” over the future of the social media giant as its best people are staying, the media reported on Thursday.
His remarks came after hundreds of employees appeared to have left the company following a deadline Musk gave them they must commit to working for a “hardcore Twitter 2.0”, or quit.
Ever since the world’s wealthiest man got ownership of Twitter in October, he sacked nearly half of the 7,500-odd staff, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and other senior executives. Some more left soon thereafter on their own as the social media giant fell into a gathering chaos. Their sudden departure sent the message around that the company might close its office buildings, at least temporarily.
But Musk was unworried. “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he tweeted, responding to a tweet by a user who said what do people mean when they say Twitter is gonna shut down?
According to media reports, after a 5 pm Thursday deadline Musk gave them to choose whether to quit or stay on at Twitter, hundreds of Twitter employees may have departed with three months of severance pay. Twitter also announced through email that it would close office buildings and disable employee badge access until Monday.
During all this, Musk and his advisers also held meetings with some undecided Twitter workers, deemed critical, to persuade them from leaving the company. The chaos also included confusing messages from Musk himself about the company’s remote work policy.
They summoned some employees to a conference room in the San Francisco office while others called in via videoconference. As the 5 pm deadline passed, some who had called in began hanging up, apparently after deciding to quit, even as Musk was speaking.
Ever since he took charge, Musk has been firing those who opposed or disagreed with him, often through public tweets. He told employees they needed to be extremely hardcore to make the company a success and gave Twitter’s remaining employees just about 36 hours to leave or commit to building a breakthrough Twitter 2.0.
The ‘meltdown’ at Twitter came within weeks of Musk acquiring the social media company for USD 44 billion last month and laying off nearly half of Twitter’s 7,500 full-time workers immediately thereafter. Their sudden departure in such a short time raised questions about how Twitter could keep operating effectively.
After Musk asked workers to decide whether to stay with the company or depart, they provided employees with an FAQ (frequently asked questions) document about exit packages on Wednesday. It said that Musk’s ultimatum was an official company communication and not a phishing attempt.
Employees would have to maximize working from an office and work the hours necessary to do their job at the highest level, including early mornings, late nights, and weekends, it said.
He also sent out confusing and differing messages about Twitter’s remote work policy. At first, he said that all Twitter employees must come to the office to work at least 40 hours a week and then announced that, regarding remote work, all that is required for approval is that their manager took responsibility for ensuring that they contributed excellently.
Minutes later, Musk dashed another email to staff saying managers were on the hook not to lie about strong work as a cover for employees to work from home.
Any manager who falsely claimed that someone reporting to them is doing excellent work, or that a role is essential, whether remote, will be exited from the company, Musk said.
