Will Elon Musk fire more employees? CEO of 'Twitter 2.0' creates a 'go hardcore or get fired' situation
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: New head of Twitter, Elon Musk, has reportedly given his remaining employees a deadline to switch to a more "hardcore" version of the network or get the chop with severance pay. The Washington Post reported that employees had been informed they must sign a pledge in order to keep their jobs.
On Wednesday morning, November 16, staffers were sent an email asking them to click "yes" on a link if they were certain they wanted to participate in the new Twitter. Musk warned them that if they did not sign by 5pm EST on Thursday, November 17, they would receive three months of severance. The message included a link to an online form.
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Musk, who finished his $44B acquisition of the microblogging platform in October, warned staffers that Twitter must become "very hardcore" going forward, which would include "working long hours at great intensity." "Only extraordinary achievement shall constitute a passing grade," his email read. After laying off almost 50% of the workforce, the Tesla CEO has already soured relations with staffers. Daily Mail reported that he acknowledged firing employees who criticized him in business Slack forums on Tuesday, November 15.
Musk, who has referred to himself as both "Chief Twit" and "Twitter Complaints Hotline," reportedly declared that engineers will run the show at Twitter. Although design and product management would still be crucial, he wrote in the email that "people developing amazing code will comprise the majority of our team and have the greatest sway."
Musk had criticized Twitter's spending and workplace environment, claiming that the company needed significant cost reductions and a service reset. Some employees, who had already publicly criticized Musk, posted that they had been fired.
The sarcastic manager was made to apologize for abruptly terminating more than a dozen workers, who had criticized him on the company's internal chat platform, Slack. Employees in the computer industry who were fired received an email stating that they had been "terminated immediately" for "violating corporate rules," Daily Mail reported.
