Twitter lost ‘multiple critical engineering teams’ as it loses 32% of staff over Musk’s ultimatum

Twitter reportedly lost multiple ‘critical’ engineering teams following a mass exodus that saw its workforce fall by 32 percent following Chief Twit Elon Musk‘s  ultimatum to pledge to a ‘hardcore’ work environment or resign. 

Musk sent an email to his remaining 3,700 workers on Wednesday and gave them a 5pm ET Thursday deadline to either click a link confirming their willingness to work ‘long hours at high intensity’, or leave the company with three months severance pay.

Although it remains unclear exactly how many have confirmed their resignation, Fortune estimates between 1,000 to 1,200 employees have resigned so far, with Musk demanding all remaining coders show up to Twitter’s San Francisco HQ on Friday.  

Many shared their departures on social media, including a viral video from Boston as workers counted down their last seconds at Twitter.  

Matthew Miller, whose LinkedIn profile states he’s worked as a Twitter engineer for 9 years, shared the video of himself and co-workers counting down the moment they no longer worked for the company following Musk’s deadline. 

‘Happy New Year,’ Miller yelled inside Twitter’s Boston office. ‘Yay! Hooray! That’s proper for the circumstance.’

Following the deadline, A former Twitter executive who recently left the company told CNN’s Oliver Darcy that: ‘Elon is finding out that he can’t bully top senior talent. They have lots of options and won’t put up with his antics.

‘[Twitter] will struggle just to keep the lights on.’

On Twitter, Musk appeared unfazed by the mass resignations, claiming the site just ‘hit another all-time high’ in usage. ‘Let that sink in.’ 

As chaos befell the sight over rumors that it was shutting down over the mass exodus, Musk added: ‘What should Twitter do next?’ 

Twitter reportedly lost multiple ‘critical’ engineering teams after 32 percent of its workforce resigned by Friday. CEO Elon Musk gave his 3,700 workers an ultimatum to work ‘long hours at high intensity’, or leave the company with three months severance pay

As chaos befell the sight over rumors that it was shutting down over the mass exodus, Musk tweeted: ‘What should Twitter do next?’

Matthew Miller (bottom left), shared a viral video of himself and coworkers counting down the moment they no longer worked for the company following Musk’s deadline

The Twitter employees in Boston noted that their badges were still working on Thursday. On Friday, those who decided to stay with Twitter said they could not get into the buildings

A former Twitter executive who recently left the company told CNN’s Oliver Darcy (above) that ‘[Twitter] will struggle just to keep the lights on’

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About 32 percent of the employees who survived Musk’s initial layoffs of half its workforce after he took over opted out of his ultimatum by not clicking ‘yes’ on a form sent out asking them to confirm if they would stay on Twitter. 

Following the mass resignations, Musk sent out an email asking ‘anyone who actually writes software’ to meet him at the Silicon Valley office on Friday at 2pm, Fortune reported. 

‘Before doing so, please email me a bullet point summary of what your code commits have achieved in the last ~6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code,’ Musk wrote. 

The CEO noted that he would remain at the headquarters until midnight, and that he would be back in office Saturday morning. 

At the start of the month, there were more than 7,000 workers at the company.

Now, the estimated 2,500 who are said to remain, have been locked out of their offices until Monday at least over fears they could sabotage the site.

In his viral video, Miller and his co-workers went to check if their badges still worked at the company, and the engineer confirmed that they did. 

There are also genuine fears online that with the mass exodus of engineers who prop up the site, it may soon start to fail.

#Twitterdown trended on Thursday night and Friday morning as concern grew.

It’s unclear how many employees have quit, but it was reported about 2,900 are saying after hundreds quit on Thursday. Meanwhile, social media users created memes to mock the mass exodus out of Twitter 

Some users joked the company was sinking like the Titanic 

One person called it the ‘end of an era’

The Twitter CEO even fired back with his own meme about the status of Twitter

The Twitter CEO, who has been active on social media, sent out a tweet at 7.50pm that read: ‘How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one.’ 

He later added: ‘The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.’  

Meanwhile, social media users blasted Musk on Twitter with the #RIPTwitter and jokingly compared the company’s mass exodus to the sinking Titanic and a burning house. 

Musk fired back with his own tweet with the Twitter bird logo on a gravestone. 

Musk softened his total ban on remote work in a follow-up email, after more workers than he anticipated opted to leave on Thursday afternoon, according to Bloomberg.

‘All that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring that you are making an excellent contribution,’ he said in the follow up about working from home.  

Musk previously said remote work would no longer be allowed and that employees would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours per week.

He had told employees that if ‘you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted,’ according to a transcript of a meeting reported by Verge.

Meanwhile, employees said that it would be difficult for the company to rebuild itself after losing key staffers. 

‘It feels like all the people who made this place incredible are leaving,’ one employee said. ‘It will be extremely hard for Twitter to recover from here, no matter how hardcore the people who remain try to be.’  

Before the end of Thursday’s workday, the social media company sent an email that said employee badge access into the office buildings would be disabled until Monday. 

Sources said the temporary office shut down was due to concerns the company would be over run by employees, Zoë Schiffer, managing editor at Platformer said.

‘We’re hearing this is because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company,’ Schiffer wrote. ‘Also, they’re still trying to figure out which Twitter workers they need to cut access for.’ 

Meanwhile, employees posted their goodbyes on Twitter.

 

Former Twitter employees posted their goodbyes on the social media site

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Parker Lyons, one of the former employees from San Diego, also poked fun at Musk over his call to have employees meet him at the San Francisco office on Friday afternoon

‘And just like that, after 12 years, I have left Twitter,’ Satanjeev Banergee wrote.

‘I have nothing but love for all my fellow tweeps, past and present. A thousand faces and a thousand scenes are flashing through my mind right now – I love you Twitter and I’ll forever bleed blue.’ 

Aodhan Flynn, of Twitter’s Dublin office, joked that it ‘ain’t all bad’ as he posted a grab of him deleting the Slack messaging app from his phone, which company employees use for communication.    

Parker Lyons, of San Diego, wrote: ‘Twitter for me is the excuse that i had to associate myself with some of the most talented, authentic and inspirational people on the planet.’ 

He also poked fun at Musk over his call to have employees meet him at the San Francisco office on Friday afternoon. 

Nobody home: Twitter’s New York City office today was empty aside from a janitor who confirmed to DailyMail.com that no staff were expected to come to work 

A janitor cleans the Twitter sign outside the company’s New York City office on Friday morning. There weren’t any staff on the premises 

The wave of resignations comes just weeks after Musk laid off some 3,700 Twitter employees, or half the company’s workforce, amid sweeping changes seeking profitability for the social media platform. 

Musk has criticized Twitter’s spending and work culture, and said that the company needs steep cost cuts and a reboot of its services.

In his email on Wednesday morning, asking employees to affirm his hardcore vision or leave, Musk shared a link to a Google Form with a single option to select: ‘Yes’.

He said anyone who did not fill out the form would be out of the company with three months severance, according to a copy of the memo reported by CNBC. 

‘Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,’ he wrote. 

‘This will mean long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,’ Musk said.

Musk said Twitter would be ‘much more engineering-driven’ under his leadership, adding that ‘those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.’

‘Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful,’ he added.