Twitter employee exodus as Musk locks office over weekend

Twitter saw a fresh exodus of its engineers on Friday, after the company's new owner, Elon Musk, emailed an ultimatum to employees asking that they vow to work "hardcore" or leave the company.

The firm's offices were also locked to employees over the weekend.

Zoe Schiffer, the managing editor of Platformer, which covers the intersection of technology and democracy, tweeted that the offices are locked over the weekend "because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company." 

Reuters reports security began kicking people out of the company's San Francisco headquarters Thursday evening even as Musk worked to convince some senior employees to stay on through a transition that can only be described as rocky.

Some employees posted on Twitter that they would be leaving the company rather than find out what Musk means by "hardcore" work, though his message suggested "long hours at high intensity."

By evening Thursday in the US, "RIP Twitter" was a top trending item on the site along with the names of rival social media services. In response, Musk tweeted that he was not concerned about the departures of staff since "the best people are staying, so I'm not super worried."

By Thursday night, messages against Musk were being projected onto the exterior of Twitter's San Francisco headquarters, mocking the new CEO as a "space Karen," among other jibes such as "manchild." In Germany by Friday midday "Space Karen" was a trending topic on the site. "Karen" is a colloquial term in the US typically assigned to white women who are outspoken about their issues and disagreements in public and who take those complaints to business managers or public authorities, such as police.

What do we know so far?

The latest round of staff departures come just ahead of the kick off of the World Cup in Qatar, one of the world's most watched and discussed events, which could see Twitter's systems overwhelmed absent the staff to manage the heavy volumes of traffic on the site.

Esther Crawford, who will remain at Twitter to overhaul the blue check mark verification system, tweeted, "To all the Tweeps who decided to make today your last day: thanks for being incredible teammates through the ups and downs. I can't wait to see what you do next."

Among those leaving are engineers responsible for troubleshooting and preventing service outages, raising concerns about the site's stability and ability to handle issues as they arise.

AP reports Twitter staff took to private forums to discuss their departure from the social media giant and inquire how that decision might endanger their visa status in the US. Others questioned whether Musk's offer of severance pay would be honored.

What's behind the latest chaos at the company?

Musk took over Twitter less than three weeks ago, removing senior staff and naming himself CEO, with other senior staff departures in the days after.

His moves since then have gutted Twitter, with half of the 7,500 employees at the time of Musk's takeover of the site now no longer employed by the company. An unknown number of contractors responsible for content moderation on the site have also been let go with no replacements.

Earlier this week, Musk fired a small number of engineers who disagreed with him publicly or internally, such as on the company's Slack messaging system.

On Wednesday night, Musk sent out a company wide email suggesting the company was mostly a software and server company, as opposed to the global public square that it has become.

He added that anyone who wishes to remain at Twitter to build a 2.0 version of the site "will need to be extremely hardcore," and everyone else can leave by Thursday night.

In his email, he intimated that the future of Twitter employment would be contingent on a willingness to work long hours on-site. On Thursday, Musk backpedalled on the demand that workers be in the office as employees who survived layoffs disagreed with the new policy.

In the new diktat, Musk wrote that for employees to work from home, "all that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring you are making an excellent contribution."

Instead of working in the office at all times, Musk's revised policy suggests, "in-person meetings with your colleagues on a reasonable cadence, ideally weekly, but not less than once per month."

ar/jcg (AP, Reuters)