Elon Musk’s acquisition of social media platform Twitter may turn out to be one of the most tumultuous investments of 2022 following recent updates from the bird app headquarters.
Following his recent ultimatum to staff to pledge their time again to the bird app, some core staff of the company have revolted and resigned en masse forcing Twitter to shut down the San Francisco headquarters of the company.
#RIPTwitter has been trending on the bird app and users have predicted the company may not last for long as ex-staff have continuously lamented Musk’s seemingly tough and unapologetic stance on hiring and firing since he came on board.
Among critical staff who exited the company include many tech specialists and engineers responsible for preventing outages on the app and fixing bug issues thus raising doubts about the stability of the platform amid the mass resignations.
According to Reuters, some staff also confirmed that the version of the Twitter app used by employees began slowing down, “If it does break, there is no one left to fix things in many areas,” the source who declined to be named added.
Trouble started at midnight Wednesday when staff received a mail from Musk asking them to work “long hours at a high intensity” in order to “build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0.”
Employees were given a deadline to agree to the new workflow by 5:00 p.m. ET Thursday or risk being fired. Three months of severance payment was promised for employees who were sacked for failing to meet this deadline.
Some hours before the deadline, hundreds of aggrieved staff opted for the three months severance pay and chose to send in their resignations instead.
This action sent shock waves across Twitter as the company later announced via email that it would shut down the office buildings and disable employee badge access.
Insider reports however confirmed that Musk and some of his advisers held critical meetings with some Twitter employees in an attempt to dissuade them from leaving.
Some of the arguments were bothered on his hard stance on staff welfare and also the issue of remote work which he cancelled soon after he took over the bird app.