Hundreds of Twitter employees have resigned from the social media company after CEO Elon Musk told them to either commit to an "extremely hardcore" Twitter and work "long hours at high intensity" or leave.
This development comes after Musk fired employees who criticized him in internal messages and tweets. Staff were given until 5 PM Eastern Time on Thursday to decide if they want to stay for "Twitter 2.0." If they decide otherwise, today would be their last day of work, and they would be entitled to three months severance pay.
According to The Verge, hundreds of Twitter employees started sending farewell messages and salute emojis on Slack after the deadline hit, which indicated that they rejected Musk"s ultimatum. "I’m not pressing the button," one resigning employee said. "My watch ends with Twitter 1.0. I do not wish to be part of Twitter 2.0."
Before the Thursday deadline, Twitter had approximately 2,900 remaining employees. While the staff count was originally around 7,500, this number was halved after Musk took over and started firing employees left and right. This was part of Musk"s moves to streamline the company"s operations and make Twitter more profitable.
Remaining employees have expressed that due to the scale of the resignations this week, they expect Twitter to "start breaking soon." This is because multiple critical engineering teams within Twitter have reportedly resigned or near-completely resigned.
A report by Reuters even pointed out that several departing engineers described themselves as "softcore engineers" or "ex-hardcore engineers" on their Twitter bios — a clear jab at Musk"s call for a "hardcore" Twitter.
Meanwhile, Twitter recruiters have started contacting outside engineers to see if they want to join Elon Musk"s "Twitter 2.0." Musk has also expressed his interests to look for another Twitter leader. However, he plans to keep managing the company "until it is in a strong place."
Source: The Verge, Reuters