Twitter is playing its survival. Hundreds of employees – and perhaps more – resigned on Thursday, the day after an ultimatum from Elon Musk who had asked the employees who survived the first wave of layoffs to choose between giving themselves “fully, unconditionally”, and leave. Half of the group’s 7,500 employees had already been laid off two weeks ago by the multi-billionaire.
According to the specialized media, many engineers have slammed the door, including some who dealt with critical tools for the network infrastructure, which could therefore suffer serious turbulence in the coming days. To add to the confusion, the company’s HQ has been sealed off until Monday, while the situation is clarified.
Check box
On Wednesday, Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for $44 billion three weeks ago, asked the social network’s employees individually for a “hardcore” commitment to “work long hours at high intensity to build a revolutionary Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world.
“Only an exceptional performance will be worth a sufficient mark”, he specified in this internal letter consulted by AFP. Employees had until Thursday afternoon to click on the “yes” box, under penalty of having to leave Twitter with compensation corresponding to three months’ salary. A management strongly denounced, particularly since many foreign employees cannot stay in the United States without a visa.
According to The Verge, hundreds of employees, and possibly as many as 1,000 – but it is unclear if they will all leave – have not checked the “yes” box. On the company’s internal Slack, many employees announced their departure with the emoji of a military salute.
“And just like that, after 12 years, I quit Twitter. I have nothing but love for all my dear tweeps (nickname for company employees). I love Twitter and I will forever bleed blue,” tweeted engineer Satanjeev Banerjee. His colleague Parker Lyons chose the song I’m gone (I’m Gone) by Oliver Tree.
Fear of breakdown, or worse
According to Zoë Schiffer, journalist for the specialized media Platformer, Twitter warned all employees on Thursday afternoon that the offices were temporarily closed and inaccessible, even with a badge.
According to The Verge, “critical” teams have quit, including the one that maintained the system libraries that all Twitter engineers use. “You can’t run Twitter without this team,” an employee told the site, on condition of anonymity.
According to New York Times, Elon Musk has dispatched engineers from Tesla in recent weeks, but they will need time to familiarize themselves with Twitter and its computer code. In the meantime, the site can continue on autopilot, but any unexpected issues may cause an outage that might be difficult to fix.
While his business is going through turbulence, Elon Musk, reacted Thursday evening by making a joke: “How to make a small fortune with social networks? Starting with a big one. »