Another Twitter employee was able to see a group on Slack, the workplace chat tool, in which company administrators appeared to be finalizing the exact number of workers to be laid off and how much they would receive from work.
By the end of the day, word had spread throughout the company that the layoffs — half of the staff — would probably come Friday, and that Musk would require the remaining Twitter employees to return to the office full time. But that word didn’t come from Musk, or anyone on his leadership team. It came via Blind, the anonymous workplace gossip site that some Twitter employees say has become their best and often only source of information about what’s going on inside the company in the chaotic, surreal week since Musk’s bought it for $44 billion.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and company leadership has not confirmed layoff plans.
Since Musk closed the deal on Oct. 27, employees say, they have received no official communication from anyone in a leadership position at the company. They have not been told that Musk completed the acquisition, that their CEO and key executives were eventually fired, or that Musk dissolved the board and installed himself as chief executive.
Instead, they’ve been reading about Musk’s dramatic plans to overhaul the company through media reports, Musk’s tweets, private conversations on Channel Two and Blind. Twitter’s open corporate culture, centered on all-staff meetings and loose Slack channels where employees and managers shared ideas, plans and jokes, has turned suspicious and secretive, several Twitter employees told The Washington Post, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were afraid. payback
“It’s like the culture of Twitter has completely turned around overnight,” said one employee. “Mass trauma event here.”
The last official communication with Twitter staff came the day before Musk took over, when Twitter’s head of people, Leslie Berland, sent a cheery email with the subject line “Visiting Elon’s office.”
“If you’re in SF and see him around, say hi!” Berland wrote. “For everyone else, this is just the beginning of many meetings and conversations with Elon, and you will all hear from him directly on Friday.”
But workers didn’t hear directly from Musk on Friday, when his planned company presentation was quietly canceled, or anytime since. The regular company meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, disappeared from everyone’s calendars on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, Berland left the company, according to people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Berland’s apparent departure, along with those of several other executives in recent days, was neither announced internally nor externally, leaving employees to speculate at Blind about which of their bosses have resigned or been fired.
Since Friday, employees have been posting memes and comments on the company’s Slack noting each day that has gone by without a word from management. One person posted an image of a skeleton with a caption that read, “I await updates from leadership,” according to documents obtained by The Post.
Instead of communicating with employees, Musk and his new deputy Jason Calacanis, who appeared at a company meeting over the weekend, have brainstormed, focused on the group and announced new products and policies publicly through their accounts. their personal Twitter account. Twitter employees have quickly learned to follow the Twitter feeds of their new leaders for essential updates on their work.
It is on Twitter that Musk confirmed that he had named himself chief executive, three days after taking ownership. It’s also where he unveiled plans to charge users $8 a month for a verification badge, among other perks; announced it will form a content moderation council to review Twitter’s speech policies; and tried to reassure jaded advertisers that he would not allow Twitter to become a “free-for-all hellscape.”
On the company’s Slack boards, employees have been posting Musk’s tweets about the new features, asking whether they should start working on implementing them or continue to sit by, according to another employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters. When Musk tweeted what features the company’s paid subscription level should have, it caught most employees in the department running that product by surprise, the employee said.
“We’re all working for the Trump White House,” the staffer said, comparing the atmosphere to Donald Trump’s administration, where tweets from the president announcing policies that hadn’t been discussed internally could come at any time.
Musk’s Twitter culture shock represents a clash between the company’s famously relaxed work environment and the closed climate typical of Musk’s companies, where leaks are swiftly punished and underperformers can be subjected to “fury roastings.” . It’s also the product of fears of job losses, which were fueled when The Post reported before he took over that Musk had told bankers he planned to cut up to 75 percent of the company’s workforce.
Inside Tesla and SpaceX, two of Musk’s other companies, workers are bound by the expectation that they won’t talk about their work outside the company — knowing that a lens is trained on their celebrity CEO at all times. They are measured on their output and ability to execute on tight deadlines, and small disagreements with the CEO can sometimes escalate into questions about suitability for the job.
At Tesla, several leaks are being heavily investigated, and an employee was fired after he posted videos on his YouTube channel showing the company’s Full Self-Driving Beta software in action — even though the videos did not reveal internal secrets, CNBC reported.
While some Twitter employees say they have struggled since Musk took over, unsure of what to work on, other teams have been ordered to develop new products under tight deadlines. An internal email obtained by The Post on Tuesday indicated that the company is aiming to launch a paid video feature, which can be used to monetize adult content, within one to two weeks, despite an estimate of internal that presents a high liability risk.
Blind has emerged as a way for Twitter employees to share what they’re hearing with others in the company anonymously, reducing the risk of them being punished for saying the wrong thing in company tools like Slack or email. Launched in 2015, Blind has caught on with Silicon Valley tech companies, each of which has its own private channel that workers can access just by verifying their company email address.
That’s where many Twitter employees are hearing about the latest layoff or layoff rumors and agonizing over the strange turn their professional lives have taken.
A Blind tweet by an employee seen by The Post on Wednesday said simply, “This level of silent treatment is completely unprofessional.” Another Twitter employee responded: “It’s not the silent treatment, it’s psychological warfare.”
Faiz Siddiqui, Gerrit De Vynck, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Cat Zakrzewski and Taylor Lorenz contributed to this report.
