Ever since business magnate Elon Musk took over Twitter, the blue birdie hasn’t stopped chirping. From firing staff including top executives to employees working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, a lot’s going on inside the company.
A couple of them were also shown the door for criticizing Musk.
According to a report by The Guardian, Elon Musk recently gave an ultimatum to staff threatening them to either sign up for ‘long hours at high intensity’ or leave.
Reports suggest Musk sent a late-night email to the remaining staff of Twitter informing them about his ultimatum to build up Twitter 2.0. Those who wanted to agree to it and stay had only a day (5 p.m. ET on Thursday) to decide. Post the deadline, they would receive three months of severance.
Following his email, several employees (reportedly in hundreds) decided to part ways and not be a part of the new Twitter.
An anonymous Twitter employee said, “Entire teams representing critical infrastructure are voluntarily departing the company, leaving the company at serious risk of being able to recover.”
“We are skilled professionals with lots of options, so Elon has given us no reasons to stay and many to leave,” said another staff member.
Here are some employees counting the seconds to Musk’s deadline after they decided to leave the company.
It’s been a ride pic.twitter.com/0VDf5hn2UA
— Matt Miller (@brainiaq2000) November 17, 2022
Several employees also started posting farewell messages on Slack (the internal communications platform of the company).
Twitter has emailed staffers: "Hi, Effective immediately, we are temporarily closing our office buildings and all badge access will be suspended. Offices will reopen on Monday, November 21st. .. We look forward to working with you on Twitter’s exciting future."
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) November 18, 2022
Amid this chaos, #RIPTwitter, and #TwitterDown started trending on the micro-blogging site, Some employees also said their final goodbyes to the company.
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
Gentlemen, it has been a privilege tweeting with you tonight.#RIPTwitter pic.twitter.com/wDRHyWhwf3
— Mitchell Nagy (@mryannagy) November 18, 2022
Damn twitter is feeling like this rn #RIPTwitter pic.twitter.com/KOnUZtynLf
— Abhi (@SagarAbhi_) November 18, 2022
Elon always thinks he’s the smartest person in the room.
He’s about to be standing in an empty room and it still won’t be true.#RIPTwitter
— KuehnObservations (@KuehnObserve) November 18, 2022
Goodbye twitter, been a good run. #RIPTwitter pic.twitter.com/fkkUZWz2oQ
— Bish 🗽 (@thebishundercov) November 18, 2022
Hoping this doesn’t happen ⬇️ but just in case: it’s been wonderful tweeting with y’all! 🐣
As a backup, follow me on Instagram, same handle: @AOC – it’s really me there, as it is here.
Or sign up for emails, where I’ll share any other platforms I join: https://t.co/Tt9J3IlWW8 https://t.co/xfe7HNvEW1
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 18, 2022
Soon after, Twitter announced via email that it would close “office buildings” and disable employee badge access until Monday.
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
So far no Twitter employees have been deactivated — even those who’ve publicly resigned. Musk and his team only collected the list of “yes’s” — employees who said they want to be part of Twitter 2.0. They’re still trying to track who is out.
— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 18, 2022
As of now, it’s unclear how many employees have left Twitter in this mass resignation. Is the Musk era ending before even kickstarting? What do you think of this? Will Twitter shut down?