Elon Musk has told Twitter employees to sign a commitment to the new “hardcore” Twitter, or they’ll lose their job (but be paid severance). The email went out to people on Wednesday morning, and employees that want to stay on will have until 5 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday to sign. Under the new terms, employees will be expected to work long hours at high intensity and “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
The new working conditions being set out by Musk come on top of the demand that employees return to the office instead of continuing to work from home, which was brought in to protect people from COVID-19. As companies try to become more lean in trying economic conditions, they’re asking employees to do more with less. The move by Musk helps make this leaning up process easier on him, as those who don’t want to be there can opt themselves out rather than being forced out.
By having fewer people to pay, Twitter can massively cut costs. Currently, Musk is trying to find ways to generate an income for the company; the most high-profile attempt so far is to try to get users to sign up to Twitter Blue, which costs $7.99.
One of the key perks of being subscribed to Twitter Blue was that you would receive a blue checkmark on your profile. This soon attracted scammers who abused the system. Musk decided to halt the checkmarks on people’s accounts and plans to relaunch the feature at the end of the month when the implementation is “rock solid”.
Update: CNBC posted a copy of the email, you can read it below:
From: Elon Musk
To: Team [at Twitter]
Subj. A Fork in the Road
Date: Nov. 16, 2022 [time stamp removed]
Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.
Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.
At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so l think this makes sense.
If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:
[Link removed]
Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.
Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.
Elon
Source: The Washington Post