Musk gave the staff an ultimatum that would take effect on November 17: agree to abide by his six rules of «insane productivity» or get out. Staff was told to answer ‘yes’ on a Google form to stay on what the new president called ‘Twitter 2.0’. If they disagreed, the staff were told they would be fired when the clock struck at 5:00 p.m, and, therefore, they would receive three months of compensation.
Meanwhile, an internal Slack channel at the company was filled with employees posting the salute emoji after the 5 pm ET deadline, indicating they had chosen not to sign Musk’s pledge and depart the company.
Twitter’s remaining workforce had until 5 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether they wanted to be a part of the culture Musk wants to implement at the social media company, or else effectively resign, according to an email he sent to staff Wednesday.
A former Twitter executive who recently exited the company described Thursday’s employee exits as a “mass exodus.”
One staff member said: «It seems like all the people who made this place amazing are leaving. It’s going to be extremely hard for Twitter to bounce back from here, no matter how hard the people who remain try to be.»
In a leaked email, Musk specified exactly what he means by ‘hardcore’ work.
Musk told staff to reduce the number of meetings they hold, writing: «Excessive meetings are the plague of large companies, and they almost always get worse over time.»
He also said that staff should be able to walk away from meetings they don’t find valuable, explaining: «It’s not rude to leave, it’s rude to make someone stay and waste time.»
Employees should also be as ‘direct’ as possible and not ‘use acronyms or meaningless words for objects, software or processes’.
Still, on the communication front, Musk has advised staff to avoid speaking through a «chain of command» and instead approach a person directly.
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Meanwhile, Twitter recruiters have already started reaching out to outside engineers to see if they want to join “Twitter 2.0 – an Elon company,”
Now, Twitter no longer has a communications department to contact for comment.
