NYT TECHNOLOGY: Elon Musk’s Twitter Teeters on the Edge After Another 1,200 Leave
By Ryan Mac, Mike Isaac and Kellen Browning
Section: Technology
Source: New York Times
Published Date: November 18, 2022 at 02:00AM
“Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today,” he wrote in a two-paragraph message, which was viewed by The New York Times. “Thanks, Elon.”
About 30 minutes later, Mr. Musk sent another email saying he wanted to learn about Twitter’s “tech stack,” a term used to describe a company’s software and related systems. Then in another email, he asked some people to fly to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to meet in person.
Twitter is teetering on the edge as Mr. Musk remakes the company after buying it for $44 billion last month. The billionaire has pushed relentlessly to put his imprint on the social media service, slashing 50 percent of its work force, firing dissenters, pursuing new subscription products and delivering a harsh message that the company needs to shape up or it will face bankruptcy.
Now the question is whether Mr. Musk, 51, has gone too far. On Thursday, hundreds of Twitter employees resigned after Mr. Musk gave them a deadline to decide whether to leave or stay. So many workers chose to depart that Twitter users began questioning whether the site would survive, tweeting farewell messages to the service and turning hashtags like #TwitterMigration and #TwitterTakeover into trending topics.
Some internal estimates showed that at least 1,200 full-time employees resigned on Thursday, three people close to the company said. Twitter had 7,500 full-time employees at the end of October, which dropped to about 3,700 after mass layoffs this month.
The employee numbers are likely to remain fluid as the dust settles on the exits, with confusion abounding over who is keeping a tally of workers and running other workplace systems. Some employees who quit said they were separating themselves from the company by disconnecting from email and logging out of the internal messaging system Slack because human resources representatives were not available.
Mr. Musk and representatives for Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
By Ryan Mac, Mike Isaac and Kellen Browning
Section: Technology
Source: New York Times
Published Date: November 18, 2022 at 02:00AM
Mr. Musk sent emails on Friday asking to learn about Twitter’s underlying technology as key infrastructure teams have been decimated.
Elon Musk sent a flurry of emails to Twitter employees on Friday morning with a plea.“Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 p.m. today,” he wrote in a two-paragraph message, which was viewed by The New York Times. “Thanks, Elon.”
About 30 minutes later, Mr. Musk sent another email saying he wanted to learn about Twitter’s “tech stack,” a term used to describe a company’s software and related systems. Then in another email, he asked some people to fly to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to meet in person.
Twitter is teetering on the edge as Mr. Musk remakes the company after buying it for $44 billion last month. The billionaire has pushed relentlessly to put his imprint on the social media service, slashing 50 percent of its work force, firing dissenters, pursuing new subscription products and delivering a harsh message that the company needs to shape up or it will face bankruptcy.
Now the question is whether Mr. Musk, 51, has gone too far. On Thursday, hundreds of Twitter employees resigned after Mr. Musk gave them a deadline to decide whether to leave or stay. So many workers chose to depart that Twitter users began questioning whether the site would survive, tweeting farewell messages to the service and turning hashtags like #TwitterMigration and #TwitterTakeover into trending topics.
Some internal estimates showed that at least 1,200 full-time employees resigned on Thursday, three people close to the company said. Twitter had 7,500 full-time employees at the end of October, which dropped to about 3,700 after mass layoffs this month.
The employee numbers are likely to remain fluid as the dust settles on the exits, with confusion abounding over who is keeping a tally of workers and running other workplace systems. Some employees who quit said they were separating themselves from the company by disconnecting from email and logging out of the internal messaging system Slack because human resources representatives were not available.
Mr. Musk and representatives for Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/18/technology/elon-musk-twitter-workers-quit.html
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