It was another wild day at Elon Musk’s Twitter, culminating in reports that all offices have been shuttered and employee badges deactivated for fear employees would sabotage the company — but hey, traffic is up!
Amid the aftermath of one of the most chaotic days since Musk took over the social media platform, the new CEO took to Twitter to tout “another all-time high in Twitter usage.”
It’s worth noting that the number one trend on Twitter Thursday night was #RIPTwitter, with many other associated topics and even the names of many of Twitter’s competitors including Snapchat, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit, LinkedIn and even Google+ and MySpace. So the traffic isn’t exactly flattering to the platform it’s on.
Musk followed this up by seemingly trolling the situation he reportedly created with a series of memes, including one shouting out the two men who fooled the media into thinking they’d been let go by the company last month. Musk took over on October 27 and almost immediately laid off half the staff.
These responses come on the heels of a leaked email released on Wednesday that told the company’s remaining staff that they either had to commit to “extremely hardcore” work, meaning “long hours at a high intensity” to “build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0” or they could accept three months’ severance and be laid off immediately.
Musk gave the half of his staff he hadn’t already fired until 5 p.m. ET Thursday to agree to the terms or he would consider them having accepted being laid off. Reportedly, the deadline came and the deadline went and hundreds of employees had resigned, per The New York Times.
Almost immediately, Musk reportedly ordered all employees to work from home for the remainder of the week, going so far as to lock all of the company’s office buildings and deactivating access badges. According to Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer, employees will remain locked out until November 21 for fear they might “sabotage” the company.
Schiffer wrote in a series of tweets, “Twitter just 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.”
“Offices will reopen on November 21st. In the meantime: ‘Please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.’
In a follow-up tweet Thursday night, Schiffer added, “The designers leading Elon Musk’s Blue verified project are out, along with the lead web engineer. Many Twitter employees who maintained critical infrastructure have resigned. This is going to look like a very different company tomorrow.
According to Fortune’s Kylie Robison in a series of tweets, “roughly 75 percent of the remaining 3,700ish” staffers did not choose to stay, while those with visas are considered “stuck.” She did clarify that the 75 percent is more the perception of employees than verified data.
Robison summed up the experiences since Musk has taken over, noting that the month started with 7,400 employees and now, should the apparent 75 percent stand by their decision to resign, the company will have reduced its staff by 88 percent in an approximately two week span.
After the offices were closed Thursday night, someone began projecting a series of personal insults to Musk across the front of the company’s San Francisco headquarters, as captured by Twitter user Joshua P. Hill, among others.
In the projection, Elon Musk’s name is posted to the left with a series of insults scrolling by. As detailed by TheWrap, the insults include “baby, supreme parasite, petulant pimple, apartheid profiteer, dictator’s asskisser, lawless oligarch, insecure colonizer, cruel hoarder, space Karen, mediocre manchild, pressurized privilege, petty racist, megalomaniac, worthless billionaire,” and “bankruptcy baby.”
In a follow-up to her initial thread about Thursday’s activities at Twitter, Schiffer says that Musk and his management team have not yet moved on all those people who did not accept his ultimatum, or even those who chose to resign.
“So far no Twitter employees have been deactivated — even those who’ve publicly resigned,” she tweeted. “Musk and his team only collected the list of “yes’s” — employees who said they want to be part of Twitter 2.0. They’re still trying to track who is out.”
While Elon Musk is busy trying to figure out how to move forward with the platform he took over less than a month ago, its users are having a field day sitting back and watching what many believe is its slow demise.
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