Twitter shuts down offices until Monday as employees quit after Musk ultimatum: reports

Twitter has reportedly told its employees that it will close its offices until Monday, as hundreds of workers quit the social media company following an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk.

On Thursday, Musk gave Twitter’s workers a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay.

Some took to Twitter to announce they were signing off after Musk’s deadline to make the pledge.

A number of employees took to a private forum outside of the company’s messaging board to discuss their planned departure, asking questions about how it might jeopardize their U.S. visas or if they would get the promised severance pay.

To all the Tweeps who decided to make today your last day: thanks for being incredible teammates through the ups and downs. I can't wait to see what you do next. ???? ????

— Esther Crawford ✨ (@esthercrawford) November 17, 2022

While it’s not clear how many of Twitter’s staff took Musk up on his offer, the newest round of departures means the platform is continuing to lose workers just at it is gearing up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, one of the busiest events on Twitter that can overwhelm its systems if things go haywire.

Since taking over Twitter three weeks ago, Musk has fired half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500 and a number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial work. He fired top executives on his first day as Twitter’s owner, while others left voluntarily in the ensuing days.

Earlier this week, Musk began firing a small group of engineers who took issue with him publicly or in the company’s internal Slack messaging system.

Then overnight on Wednesday, Musk sent an email to the remaining staff, saying Twitter is a software and servers company at its heart and he asked employees to decide by Thursday evening if they want to remain a part of the business.

Musk wrote that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore” to build “a breakthrough Twitter 2.0” and that long hours at high intensity will be needed for success.

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But in a Thursday email, Musk backpedaled on his insistence that everyone work from the office. His initial rejection of remote work had alienated many employees who survived the layoffs.

He softened his earlier tone in an email to employees, writing that “all that is required for approval is that your manager takes responsibility for ensuring you are making an excellent contribution.” Workers would also be expected to have “in-person meetings with your colleagues on a reasonable cadence, ideally weekly, but not less than once per month.”

Meanwhile, the hashtag #RIPTwitter is trending on Twitter, as many celebrities and users say goodbye to the social media site.

Musk didn’t seem too bothered by the departures, saying in a tweet, “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”

He also went on to say, “We just hit another all time high in Twitter usage,” but didn’t elaborate further.

And … we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022