Elon Musk: Twitter surprises employees with temporary office closures

Twitter has warned its employees that the company’s offices will be temporarily closed – a measure with immediate effect.

In a message to which the BBC had access, professionals were informed that the company’s offices would reopen on Monday (21).

Twitter did not explain the reason for the measure.

The announcement comes amid reports that a large number of employees were resigning after the platform’s new owner, entrepreneur Elon Musk, gave an ultimatum to the team to commit to “long, high-intensity journeys” or leave the company. company.

The message announcing the temporary closure of the offices still said: “Please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media, with the press or elsewhere.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

This week, Musk told Twitter employees they had to choose to work long hours and “be extremely hardcore” or leave the company.

In an email to employees, the new owner of the platform said that professionals should agree to the condition if they wanted to remain in the company, reported the American newspaper Washington Post.

They would have received a deadline until Thursday (17) to accept or not the new terms – those who refused, would receive a compensation of three months of payment for the dismissal, according to Musk.

Earlier this month, the company said it would cut around 50% of its workforce.

But the announcement of the temporary closure of Twitter’s offices comes amid signs that a large number of employees have resigned over not accepting Musk’s new terms.

Some employees tweeted using the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked (which roughly translates to “love where you worked”) and a greeting emoji to show they were leaving the company.

A former Twitter employee who preferred to remain anonymous told the BBC:

“I think when the dust settles today there will probably be less than 2,000 people left.”

The same source added that everyone on his team has been fired.

“The team manager, and his manager, were fired. And then that manager’s manager was fired. The person above him, who was one of the executives, was fired on the first day. So there’s nobody left in that chain of command.”

Before Musk took over Twitter, the company had about 7,500 employees. It was also reported that the company employed thousands of contract workers, most of whom were laid off.

Another employee said he resigned even though he was prepared to work long hours.

“I didn’t want to work for someone who threatened us via email several times about ‘only exceptional tweeters should work here’ when I was already working 60 to 70 hours a week,” he said.

Musk, the richest person in the world, became chief executive of Twitter after buying the company last month in a $44 billion deal.

In response to a question about concerns about the company’s future, asked after sending the message announcing the closure of the offices, Musk tweeted:

“The best people will stay, so I’m not too worried.”

In separate posts, he tweeted a skull and crossbones emoji and a meme showing a tombstone with the Twitter logo.

This text was published here.