iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
In yet another mayhem-filled day at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, hundreds of employees have resigned ahead of the deadline given to them by Elon Musk to either agree to his “extremely hardcore” way of work or quit the company.
Several employees took to Twitter to announce their resignations ahead of the 5 pm Thursday deadline (US time) to meet Musk’s new work criteria.
Twitter had around 3,000 employees left after the massive layoffs when Musk sacked about half of its workforce after taking over the company.
“And just like that, after 12 years, I have left Twitter. I have nothing but love for all my fellow tweeps, past and present. A thousand faces and a thousand scenes are flashing through my mind right now – I love you Twitter and I’ll forever bleed blue,” posted Satanjeev Banerjee from San Francisco.
Several employees also bid farewell to Twitter in the company’s internal messaging platform Slack.
“After the deadline hit, hundreds of employees quickly started posting farewell messages and saluting emojis in Twitter’s Slack, announcing that they had said no to Musk’s ultimatum,” reports The Verge.
“I have worked here at Twitter for over 11 years. Back in July, I was the 27th most tenured employee at the company. Now I’m the 15th,” posted one employee in Twitter’s Slack.
“I’m not pressing the (yes) button. My watch ends with Twitter 1.0. I do not wish to be part of Twitter 2.0,” another posted.
Musk, in his memo to employees, had written that “going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore”.
“Guess I just said goodbye to the ghost of my dream job forever?. Tweeps, you are world-class,” posted another employee who resigned.
Zoe Schiffer, Managing Editor at Platformer, tweeted that “Twitter has alerted employees that effective immediately, all office buildings are temporarily closed and badge access is suspended. No details given as to why”.
“We’re hearing this is because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company. Also, they’re still trying to figure out which Twitter workers they need to cut access for,” she tweeted.
Schiffer said that Twitter offices will reopen on November 21.
Fortune Magazine tech reporter Kylie Robinson said on Twitter: “What I’m hearing from Twitter employees; It looks like roughly 75% of the remaining 3,700ish Twitter employees have not opted to stay after the “hardcore” email. Even though the deadline has passed, everyone still has access to their systems.”
She said those who are on visas may have no option but to stay, but others have opted to leave. “As we’re all very aware, folks on visas are stuck, so that’s who makes up most of the roughly 25% (or less than 1,000….) expected to stay. The actual impact is not yet known — there have been no internal comms about what comes next. We’re nearly 2 hours post deadline.”
She calculated that at the current rate of attrition, Twitter may have lost up to 88% of its employees in less than a month.
“Let’s put this into perspective — at the beginning of this month, Twitter had 7,400 employees. Barely half way through the month, if 75% do actually stick to their decision today, the company will have shrunk by a whopping ~88%.”
She added: “10% of the 3,700ish remaining employees deemed critical were called to a meeting an hour before the 5PM deadline today. The invite was sent around midnight but got cancelled by noon. The final attrition results are yet to be seen. Elon COULD convince some top talent to stay. I think it’s going to be difficult — Twitter’s best people can clearly find better opportunities elsewhere that are far, far less messy.”
Twitter Saga: Mass resignations on Thursday, Elon Musk suspends office access till Nov 21
