Anyone who describes last weekend as a rollercoaster of emotions for Twitter employees could also describe Elon Musk as wealthy. Neither is wrong, but only part of the truth. In fact, the world’s richest person has put thousands of people through so many emotional loops that many have suffered whiplash.
First, Twitter fired around half of the 7,500 employees. Now the new owner realizes that the mass layoffs were probably a bit hasty. Dozens of employees are said to be returning to work. This is just one of several radical U-turns Musk has made in the past few days. Here are the issues where Musk changed his mind, caused chaos, or contradicted himself:
Fire first, then retrieve
For days, Twitter employees waited for the email that would decide their future careers. Half were allowed to continue, the other half should look for a new job. Some resigned voluntarily, others worked through the night and slept in their offices in the desperate hope of averting impending layoffs.
Last Friday, the long-awaited and dreaded message brought certainty: “We regret to inform you that your role on Twitter has been affected.” After Musk canceled every announced meeting for a week and employees learned from the media about the planned wave of layoffs, he again distanced himself from his own decision. The email was signed “Team”, no sign of Elon Musk.
Those who remained did not know who else was there besides them. They wrote to their colleagues to find out if they were ex-colleagues. Apparently whoever answered had gotten away with it. “It’s a ghost town”, one person told the tech newsletter platformers. Departments dealing with social risks and side effects were hit particularly hard. The human rights and responsible use of artificial intelligence teams have been completely disbanded.
Shortly thereafter, a surprising message followed on the internal communication platform Slack, quoted by journalist Casey Newton: “Sorry that we notify everyone at the weekend, but I wanted to share that we have the opportunity to ask people who have been made redundant to come back.” Employees “who we think will help us” could be suggested until Sunday afternoon.
Since then, dozens of ex-employees have been asked to ignore their resignation. Some of them were put in front of the door by mistake, reported Bloomberg. In some cases, it was noticed too late that their work and expertise were necessary to develop the new functions that Musk had promised. Further details are not yet known, but Musk’s tweets give at least vague indications. On Saturday he announced aboutthat Twitter will soon be able to attach longer notes to tweets, which are limited to 280 characters. Twitter has been working on this for a long time, but the entire team was fired on Friday.
Chaos around verification and account bans
For years, the white tick on a blue background has stood for a certain degree of authenticity. Twitter uses it to mark accounts whose identity has been verified and verified. Politicians, celebrities and other public figures can use it to protect themselves from imitators. Musk wants to charge for this security feature. For eight dollars a month you can get verified and get other amenities, including your own replies to other tweets are displayed preferentially.
The function was originally supposed to be activated on Monday. Many Twitter employees thought that was a bad idea. Internally and publicly, they expressed concerns that the process could be abused. In view of the upcoming elections in the USA, it is particularly risky to fundamentally change verification. These warnings were apparently heard. Twitter is now postponing the introduction at least to next Wednesday, i.e. one day after the US midterms on November 8th.
Previously, some prominent Twitter users had demonstrated how easy it was to impersonate well-known accounts. Actors, football players and comedians renamed their accounts to “Elon Musk”.. Because they were previously self-verified, they kept the tick circled in blue – so Twitter incorrectly confirmed that it was the real Musk.
Musk responded promptly: Anyone who pretends to be someone else without expressly labeling it as satire will be banned forever. One of the first tweets Musk made after buying Twitter sounded very different: “Comedy is now legal on Twitter,” he wrote. His attitude towards account suspensions also seems to have changed drastically in a short period of time. He rejects permanent bans, they should be the absolute exception, he previously said. Any accounts imitating him have now been blocked.
threat to advertisers
Twitter aims to become a platform where anyone can say almost anything, unless they’re breaking the law. Musk came out with that promise, ignoring the fact that his radical understanding of free speech deters advertisers. Most big companies don’t want to run ads when they risk appearing alongside insults, threats, and the worst sexism.
A number of companies have therefore withdrawn in the past few days, including Volkswagen, Pfizer, General Motors and several large associations. Musk sees the responsibility in others. The massive drop in sales was blamed on activists pressuring advertisers to he wrote. “This is a big mess! They are trying to destroy freedom of expression in America.” A far-right account calling for a boycott of companies that pause their Twitter ads, replied Musk: “Thank you. A thermonuclear ‘Name & Shame’ is exactly what will happen if this continues.”