Hundreds of Twitter employees resigned on Thursday just ahead of Elon Musk’s deadline to “pledge” to “Twitter 2.0.”
This comes after Musk’s fired nearly 50 per cent of Twitter employees across the world.
Twitter on Thursday closed its offices and disabled badge access for employees till November 21 as several of them resigned, The New York Times reported.
On Wednesday, Musk asked Twitter employees to decide within 36 hours whether they want to leave the company or commit to building a what he calls “Twitter 2.0”. He said that those who decide to leave would get three months of severance pay.
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After the deadline hit, hundreds of employees announced that they had said no to Musk’s ultimatum.
On Thursday, Twitter sent a memo to its employees stating that its offices would be closed till Monday.
Earlier this week, Musk had warned Twitter’s employees to prepare for 80-hour work weeks, the end of subsidised meals and strict prohibitions on working from home.
In his first address to the remaining Twitter’s employees after buying the social media platform for $44 billion, he said the company can go bankrupt if it does not start generating more cash.
Musk had also warned employees of "tough times ahead" in an email, adding that there was "no way to sugarcoat the news" regarding the company's economic future.
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According to a report on The Verge citing an employee, multiple “critical” teams inside Twitter have now either completely or near-completely resigned.
In a tweet Thursday evening, Musk said: “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”
Musk fired nearly half of the original 7,000 Twitter employees and with the resignations from a major chunk of the remaining employees, questions are being asked if the social media giant has enough manpower to function properly.
Meanwhile, a New York Times report said Musk and his advisers also held meetings with some Twitter workers deemed "critical" and to stop them from leaving the company.
"In one of those meetings, some employees were summoned to a conference room in the San Francisco office while others called in via videoconference. As the 5 pm deadline passed, some who had called in began hanging up, seemingly having decided to leave, even as Mr. Musk continued speaking," it added.
Amid this, Videos of Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco have gone viral in which words like "mediocre manchild, pressurized privilege, megalomaniac, worthless billionaire” have been used against Musk. However, it is unclear who was behind it.
Musk had recently announced the relaunch of the paid Twitter Blue tick subscription. As per the official tweet shared by Musk, Twitter’s most talked-about blue tick subscription will be relaunched on November 29 for its users, after experiencing some delay.
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“Be careful what you wish for,” Musk told a business forum in Bali on Monday when asked what an up-and-coming “Elon Musk of the East” should focus on.
“I mean, the amount that I torture myself, is the next level, frankly,” he said.
Just one email a week