Twitter trends were booming tonight with #RIPTwitter and #GoodbyeTwitter tagged messages, as the employees of the social media service reached an Elon Musk imposed deadline decision.
Musk had earlier asked for a pledge from employees to commit to “extremely hardcore…long, hard hours” that would bring forth an improved Twitter 2.0. He warned that nothing less than excellence would be acceptable. The workforce has already been reeling from layoffs rumored at 3,700 people since Musk took over the service a few weeks ago.
The message was sent out with a promise: click on a convenient link that indicated the employee was willing to commit, or be prepared to receive three months of severance and a lockout from their former employer.
A major bone of contention has been Musk’s insistence that workers return to the office for at least 40 hours per week. But reports surfaced today that he was moving off that hardline approach as the signups for Team Twitter lagged. There were also reports that the company had locked out badge access and its system until Monday as it assesses the impact of today’s actions.
If this indeed marks the end of Twitter – a somewhat dubious prospect, given that it was just bought for $44 billion – then it went out with more than a few laughs.
A few of the posts, many of which used the 😭 emoji:
Musk’s rejoinder came in a reply to a question from Barstool Sports’ founder Dave Portnoy who asked if it really mattered that engineers were leaving before admitting, “I also don’t know anything.”
Musk’s response?
“The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried.”
