Elon Musk has rocked the Twitter tree ever since he took over the microblogging platform in late October. His latest move has sparked an exodus of employees and office closures.
Earlier this week, Musk sent Twitter staff an email ultimatum telling them they must commit to “working long hours at high intensity” or leave their desks by Thursday, November 17.
A large number of them have opted for the second option, which is understood to include three months’ severance pay, which has caused the company’s offices to be temporarily closed as hundreds of employees have left.according to reports.
Twitter also announced that it would temporarily suspend access to ID cards until Monday, November 21, asking staff to “refrain from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or anywhere else.”
Email to Twitter staff saying offices are closed till Monday.
“I didn’t want to work for someone who threatened us over email multiple times” says one employee who’s just resigned pic.twitter.com/Xd9s36f0ru
—James Clayton (@JamesClayton5) November 18, 2022
An email to Twitter staff says the offices will be closed until Monday. “I didn’t want to work for someone who threatened us via email multiple times,” says one recently resigned employee.
According to one poll carried out in the Blind labor application to 180 people, 42% chose the answer “By taking the exit option, I am free!” Reuters reported on November 18. In another survey, half of those surveyed estimated that 50% of the workforce would leave.
Employees aren’t the only ones fleeing Twitter after Musk’s actions; users have searched for alternatives. One that has come to the fore recently is Mastodon, which has seen new registrations skyrocket.
The decentralized social network is a federation of independently operated and interconnected servers running on open source software.
On November 12, Mastodon claimed that it had added more than a million new members since the deal with Twitter was closed. On November 3, MIT reported that Twitter had lost the same number of users since the acquisition by Musk.
The former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey also unveiled his decentralized social network, Bluesky Social, in October, which aims to give users control over their data and will feature portable user accounts and access to “an open marketplace of algorithms.”
Dorsey hopes his bitcoin-powered platform will steer users away from the scam- and spam-ridden, centralized social networks of Web2.
Dorsey already refused to accept the position of CEO at Twitteras Musk said this week that he wants someone else to run it.
For his part, Elon Musk lamented the troubles of running a social network after the news of the exodus of employees broke:
How do you make a small fortune in social media?
Start out with a large one.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
How do you make a small fortune on social media? Start with a big one.
In another tweet responding to questions from pop culture blog Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, Musk said he was “not super worried” as “the best people stay.”
The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
The best people stay, so I’m not super worried.
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