Hundreds of his employees Twitter they are expected to leave the company after an ultimatum from the new owner Elon Muskwhich urged workers to either commit to work “long and hard” or leave.

With the company temporarily closing – until Monday – its offices to employees, questions are now being asked if it is possible to remain unaffected, and the hashtags #RIPTwitter, #TwitterDown have already become popular among users of the platform, as well as links to other alternative Twitter social networks. , such as Mastodon and Myspace.

According to current and former employees, according to the Guardian, many of the departing engineers were responsible for fixing bugs, raising questions about the stability of the platform, and fomenting arguments among senior executives about which of the departed should return.

In the first sign that the number of those who refused to sign the ultimatum was larger than expected, Musk partially reconsidered his decision to suspend remote work, telling workers on Thursday they would be allowed to work remotely if their managers said they made an outstanding contribution.” .

Twitter later announced via email that it would close “our office buildings” to workers until Monday, according to the New York Times. The company’s security services began evicting employees from offices on Thursday afternoon, a source told Reuters.

According to a current and former employee of the company, quoted by Reuters, Elon Musk entered the process of meeting with key executives to convince them to stay with the company.

He, however, said in his post that he is not worried about resignations as “the best people stay”, while highlighting the fact that the use of the platform has reached an all-time high in recent days, without giving further details.

Twitter, which has lost several members of its public relations team, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

What was said in the ultimatum?

Employees were given the option that in order to stay, they had to sign the following: “If you are sure you want to join the new Twitter, click Yes on the link below.” Anyone who does not sign the commitment before 17:00. Thursday will leave with a severance pay, which is calculated on three salaries.

In an email to employees obtained by The Washington Post, Musk stressed that Twitter “has to be extremely tough” in the future. “This will mean many hours of high-intensity work,” he stressed, adding: “Only excellent results will be considered a passing score.”

^{According to REUTERS, The Guardian, New York Times.}