Elon Musk gives Twitter employees a deadline to stay or leave

SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk gave Twitter employees a deadline of 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday to decide whether to work for him, and he asked those who didn’t share his views to quit their jobs, in his latest shocking treatment of the social media. media company.

Mr. Musk made the announcement in an email to employees Wednesday morning; The New York Times got the message, with the subject “A Fork in the Road.” In the note, the 51-year-old Musk reiterated that Twitter was facing a tough road and offered employees three months of layoff if they did not want to continue working there “to build a groundbreaking Twitter 2.0”.

The billionaire has been inexorably transforming Twitter since closing his $44 billion acquisition of the company nearly three weeks ago. Mr. Musk quickly cut half of Twitter’s 7,500 workforce, laid off thousands of contractors, fired employees who had criticized him and slashed infrastructure costs. He has also proclaimed that Twitter needs to make more money or face bankruptcy. And he’s pushed subscription products and alternately wooed and insulted Twitter’s advertisers.

Giving remaining employees a deadline to leave has the double effect that Mr. Musk can further reduce costs and purge the company of dissatisfied employees. Mr. Musk has brought in a circle of confidants and employees from some of his other companies, such as electric car maker Tesla, to advise him on Twitter.

Mr Musk and Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In his note to Twitter employees on Wednesday, Mr. Musk that they should work hard — really hard. “In an increasingly competitive world, we will have to be extremely tough,” he wrote. “This means working long hours at a high intensity. Only exceptional performance constitutes a pass.’

Engineering will be the primary focus, added Mr. Musk to it, with design and product management taking second place. He included a link to an online form asking employees to confirm their interest in working at Twitter.

Many Twitter employees have openly objected to Mr Musk’s leadership, and the company’s workforce could be further reduced if many employees accept the offer to leave. Tuesday fired Mr. Musk nearly two dozen employees who had criticized his leadership in posts on Twitter or the company’s internal messaging service, Slack.

Departing employees have questioned whether Musk can make Twitter work effectively with a dramatically reduced workforce. During the massive layoffs this month, Mr. Musk made deep cuts in the group that maintained Twitter’s core infrastructure. Top executives overseeing product, security and advertising sales have resigned. And the contract workforce reductions included the layoffs of people dealing with content moderation and child safety issues.

Twitter could face a test of how well it works next week, when the World Cup is expected to attract a flood of visitors to its service. The extra load on the infrastructure can cause problems.

Priority features for Mr. Musk have also slowed down. As advertisers have shied away from his leadership, he’s focused on adding new subscription revenue through products like Twitter Blue, which include selling verification ticks for $8 a month. The paid verification feature debuted this month, but was interrupted after impersonators used it to impersonate big brands and spread misinformation.

Tuesday said Mr. Musk in one tweet that Twitter Blue’s debut would be pushed back to November 29 to make sure it was “rock solid”.

On Wednesday, Mr. Musk appeared in a Delaware court to testify in a case concerning his compensation as Tesla CEO. After being asked about his commitments to Twitter and claiming that he slept at the company’s office, he said he did not expect to spend so much time with the social media company in the future.

The “restructuring” at Twitter would be completed by the end of the week, he testified.

Ryan Mac reporting contributed.