Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, issued an ultimatum to the employees this morning, giving them until Thursday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time to determine whether or not they want to be a part of the new “hardcore” Twitter, else they would be terminated with three months’ worth of severance pay.
This morning, Musk sent out an email with the subject line “A Fork in the Road,” in which he requested that those who wanted to continue working for the company follow a specific link. According to copies of the email that were supplied to Forbes by three relevant sources who are familiar with the situation, anybody who did not do so by the deadline will be terminated.
He said that in order to construct “Twitter 2.0,” they would need to be “extremely hardcore,” working for extended periods of time at a high level of concentration. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
Twitter had not yet sent a response to a request for comment.
According to the newly appointed CEO, the redesigned Twitter will place more emphasis on engineering, and users who develop “great code” would have the greatest influence. “If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below… Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful,” Musk added.
The email was sent after Twitter fired over 7,000 employees and saw a rising number of resignations, the most recent of which included top positions in the company’s privacy, security, and trust departments. Musk terminated the employment of one engineer through Twitter, but the CEO afterward removed the message from the informing notice in which he informed the employee that they had been let go. In a subsequent interview with Forbes, the former worker referred to Musk and his Twitter staff as “a bunch of cowards.”
Additionally, rumors surfaced yesterday indicating that staff Twitter accounts and internal Slack discussions were being seen and tracked. At least twenty of those who made negative remarks about the firm and its new boss were let go, including developer Nick Morgan, who stated on Twitter that “I can only assume this was for not showing 100% loyalty in Slack. I’ve heard the same thing has happened to many others now.”
Concerns have been raised because a large number of the firm’s contracted content moderators, as well as different members of the trust and safety team, have been let go, leading to the possibility that the company may struggle to deal with unlawful material on its platform.
