Twitter Is Running On The Fumes As Hundreds More Employees Jump Ship
Over the past few days, doom-scrolling Twitter has taken on an entirely new meaning. It’s actually kind of been fun, but then again, I have none of Elon Musk’s beluga-hued skin in the game. But according to Business Insider, the Titanic memes and hashtags like #RIPTwitter, #Twitteroff, and #Twittershutdown being gleefully shared probably hit differently for the hundreds of employees who Elon hadn’t already fired as they watch Twitter sink, circling the very drain that Elon walked in with just three weeks before. All the while, Elon’s been working “morning to night, seven days a week,” doing everything in his power to assure the few remaining employees who hadn’t already resigned after yesterday’s ultimatum deadline that they’re a big joke to him by posting dank memes, featuring himself, at their expense, and locking everybody out of their offices until Monday.
As of this writing, Twitter is still up and running despite the company having hemorrhaged hundreds of employees overnight. Earlier this week, Elon gave his staff an ultimatum — Either metaphorically suck his dick by signing a pledge to give over their lives to Elon’s “extremely hardcore,” “Twitter 2.0,” or resign with three months of severance. According to Business Insider, the line to the exits was much longer than the line to get into Elon’s Extremely Hardcore Dick-Sucking Symposium.
Elon Musk’s new vision for Twitter didn’t prove enticing for most of the people left at the company.
Less than half of the company’s remaining roughly 4,000 employees chose on Thursday to stay at the company and sign up for Musk’s “Twitter 2.0,” a vision of the company he pitched in a brief email sent overnight on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the company’s processes. In other words, fewer than 2,000 Twitter employees plan to stay.
Musk ordered Twitter employees interested in working for his “extremely hardcore” version of Twitter to click a sign-up link by Thursday 5 p.m. ET, or else they would be considered part of a voluntary layoff and receive three months of severance pay. So many employees refused to sign up that it took Musk and his transition team off guard, another person familiar with the company said.
About an hour after the deadline passed, workers were emailed by building services telling them that Twitter’s offices would again be closed immediately, that access to the buildings would be suspended, and that employees needed to leave the premises, a person familiar with the directive said. The company also closed offices and barred employees from entering the evening Musk began to enact mass layoffs on November 3.
Insider notes that part of the reasoning for the closure is “prevent physical sabotage,” so I hope somebody already thought to grab that sink because at the rate Twitter’s failing, it’ll be worth its weight in porcelain on eBay. But for all his bluster, it seems that Elon may have overplayed his hand. CNBC reports that Elon has softened his stance a bit on the dick-sucking, but for ENGINEERS ONLY. Engineers can just kiss the tip. And he even promises to wash it first!
Late on Thursday, Twitter sent out a companywide email saying its offices would be closed from Friday until Monday, and badge access would cut off during that temporary closure.
Then, in a pair of widely distributed emails sent at the start of business on Friday, Musk called for “anyone who actually writes software,” to report to Twitter’s headquarters by Friday afternoon. First, though, he asked them to send him a high-level report of the best code that they have worked on in the last six months.
After the initial call for engineers to come into the office, he also sent a followup encouraging people to fly to San Francisco to present in person. He said, in one of his emails, he would be working late into the night at the company’s headquarters office Friday, and back again on Saturday morning.
And to those who think that Elon’s takeover of Twitter was all just some billionaire’s boondoggle, have I got some news for you! Turns out it really was all about persevering free speech and saving humanity as he said. How else do you explain Elon’s most recent tweet?
Kathie Griffin, Jorden Peterson & Babylon Bee have been reinstated.
Trump decision has not yet been made.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
And as Grimes would remind you, bro may live at times below the poverty line, but that doesn’t mean he can’t keep his eye on the prize.
Let that sink in …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Considering that Twitter’s revenue comes from advertisers and not schadenfreude doom scrollers, I can only assume that Elon knows what he’s doing and has secured a lucrative contract with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell‘s most direct competition, MySink.com.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Pic: Britta Pedersen/DPA/Cover Images