Twitter has temporarily closed its offices after more and more employees decided to leave following an ultimatum from Elon Musk, who asked them to agree to work harder and longer hours or leave the company in exchange for three compensation payments.

Twitter headquarters in San FranciscoPhoto: David Odisho/Getty images/Profimedia

According to reports by some American media outlets, cited by the German DPA agency on Friday, the social network closed its offices until Monday, fearing that disgruntled employees could sabotage the company’s computer systems, Agerpres reports.

According to the cited sources, hundreds of them would reject the ultimatum put forward by Musk. The new owner of the social network sent an email to employees on Wednesday, published by several media outlets, in which he said that in order to create Twitter 2.0, they will have to “work many hours at a high intensity” and only those who demonstrate “exceptional efficiency” will pass the review to be able to stay on companies

Musk also attached a form to that email that everyone who wants to continue working on Twitter must fill out. “Whoever does not fulfill it by Thursday (November 17) by 5:00 p.m. will receive three months’ salary,” he warned.

But the number of employees who decided to leave the company seems to have surprised Musk and his team. The American billionaire has thus abandoned his insistence that everyone work at the company’s headquarters, after his refusal to work remotely upset many Twitter employees who experienced the first wave of layoffs immediately after Musk bought the company in late October .

Additionally, in a new email to employees, he softened the tone a bit, saying that “all that is required for approval (retention is not) is for your manager to take responsibility for you have made a wonderful contribution.” Musk also promises periodic meetings of managers and employees.

The departure of many of them raises doubts about the platform’s ability to stay online, given that among those leaving are also the staff responsible for maintaining the system, and without enough engineers, some flaws will be more difficult to fix.

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