Hours after Elon Musk issued the “extremely hardcore” work notice, an ultimatum to work intense long hours to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0, to Twitter employees, there has been mass resignation at the social media company.
Musk was reportedly forced to relax his ‘no remote work’ policy because several Twitter employees refused to sign his ultimatum. The situation started with the resignation of the company’s CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer.
“Everyone should know that our CISO, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Compliance Officer ALL resigned last night. This news will be buried in the return-to-office drama. I believe that is intentional,” Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platformer, quoted a senior member of Twitter’s legal team posting in Slack.
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“Twitter is a remote-first workplace, and has operated as such for years. It is a fundamental change to our employment contracts to require a 40hr a week in-office requirement. I do not, personally, believe that Twitter employees have an obligation to return to office,” the senior member of Twitter’s legal team added.
On Thursday, according to Schiffer, Twitter alerted employees that effective immediately, all office buildings are temporarily closed and badge access is suspended. No details given as to why.
Schiffer said Twitter is believed to have taken the step 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.
The development has triggered concern among Twitter users that the platform, without experienced employees to run it, is on the verge of collapse. Hashtags such as GoodByeTwitter and RIPTwitter have been trending on the platform, underlining users’ fear that Musk may be running the social company aground.
Though he tweeted early Friday morning that “we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage” and has joked about the company’s current situation using memes, Musk is understood to be uncomfortable about the situation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Musk started his era as Twitter’s owner firing the company’s executives, including the CEO Parag Agrawal. He followed up by halving the company’s entire 7,000 workforce in an effort to cut running costs. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, a price higher than the company’s actual value. The billionaire’s Twitter 2.0 agenda is thus geared toward recuperating the money he invested in the acquisition.
“Over the last 2 weeks, Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter. He chose to enter into the agreement! All of us are being put through this as a result of his choices.
“Elon has shown that his only priority with Twitter users is how to monetize them. I do not believe he cares about the human rights activists, the dissidents, our users in un-monetizable regions, and all the other users who have made Twitter a global town square,” the senior member of Twitter’s legal team said.
Advertisers halted their Twitter patronage as concern piles up about where the company is headed with the changes being introduced by Musk. The world richest man had accused activists of masterminding the boycott.
Besides the drop in ad revenue, the greatest threat to Twitter’s existence is Musk’s fight with several employees who maintained critical infrastructure at the company. The company said offices will reopen on November 21st. It however urged employees to “continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.”
Under Musk’s ultimatum, Twitter employees who don’t sign the “hardcore” agreement by 5pm Thursday have effectively resigned. Twitter said they’ll be on payroll for 2 months and get an additional month of severance, pending a separation agreement that has not yet been shared.
With the designers leading Musk’s Blue verified project, along with the lead web engineer also out, Musk is facing the most challenging period of his Twitter adventure.
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, Schiffer said.