New York
CNN Business
–
Death is in the air on Twitter.
On the platform Thursday night, where #RIPTwitter was trending worldwide, users wrote what they feared might be their last posts, offering anxious farewells and listing other (more stable) platforms of social media where they can still be found.
They were reacting to the terrible news coming out from within Twitter. Many remaining employees at the social media company on Thursday appeared to reject owner Elon Musk’s ultimatum to work “extremely hardcore,” throwing the communications platform into utter disarray and raising serious questions about how long it will survive.
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The death of Twitter would have serious consequences, given how integral the platform is to global communications. The platform has often been compared to a digital town square. World leaders use Twitter to communicate, journalists use Twitter to gather news, dissidents in repressive countries use Twitter to organize, celebrities and major brands use Twitter to make important announcements, and the public often use Twitter to monitor it all in real time.
If the platform were to shut down or become unusable due to instability issues, no single space would immediately replace it, and communications could break across multiple social media websites, leading to a seismic outage and slowdown. of information flow.
Within the company’s Slack, a mass resignation effectively occurred after Musk’s 5 p.m. deadline for employees to come to an approved decision. Hundreds of employees appear to have called it quits, accepting Musk’s offer to leave in exchange for three months of severance.
Employees flooded the #social-watercooler channel with greeting emojis, indicating that they had chosen not to sign Musk’s pledge. A similar series of events unfolded in the Slack channel earlier this month after Musk eliminated roughly 50% of the company’s then-7,500-person workforce.
A former Twitter executive who recently left the company described the situation as a “mass exodus.” Asked about the situation, the former executive said: “Elon is finding it can’t bully top talent. They have many options and will not put up with his tricks.”
“They will fight just to keep the lights on,” the former executive added.
That assessment was universally shared by half a dozen other current and former employees on Thursday. It was already bad enough after Musk executed mass layoffs at the company earlier this month. So bad that Twitter asked some of the people it let go to come back just days later. The state of play has gotten more dire since then.
In fact, Twitter management was in panic mode hours before the deadline passed, people familiar with the matter said, explaining that senior executives were “scrambling” to convince talent to stay at the company.
Musk himself seemed to finally understand the grim state of affairs, sending out an email to all staff relaxing his previously uncompromising stance against remote working. “Regarding remote work, all that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for making sure you are making an excellent contribution,” Musk said in the email.
It didn’t seem to do very well.
Two employees who had decided to reject Musk’s ultimatum on Thursday were quite clear about why they were doing so. “I don’t want to stand to build a product that is poisoned inside and out,” said one, later adding that he felt good about making a decision “in line with what I stand for.”
A recently fired employee who remains in touch with former co-workers said: “People don’t want to sacrifice their mental health and family life to make the richest man in the world richer.”
And Twitter appeared to take matters into its own hands on Thursday night, sending an email to staff announcing that it has once again closed all of its offices and suspended employee badge access, apparently to protect its systems and data.
Twitter’s now-defunct communications department did not respond to requests for comment. But Musk nodded to the situation in a tweet.
“How Can You Make a Small Fortune on Social Media?” asked Musk. “Start with a big one.”
