Hundreds of Twitter employees are estimated to leave the social media company after receiving Elon’s ultimatum, In a poll on the workplace app Blind, which verifies employees through their work email addresses and allows them to share information anonymously, 42% of 180 people chose the answer “Taking the exit option, I’m free!” A quarter said they had chosen to stay “reluctantly,” and only 7% of the poll participants said they “clicked yes to stay, I’m hardcore.”
Musk was meeting some top employees to try and convince them to stay, said one current employee and a recently departed employee who is in touch with Twitter colleagues. While it is unclear how many employees have chosen to stay, the numbers highlight the reluctance of some staffers to remain at a company where Musk has hastened to fire half its employees, including top management, and is ruthlessly changing the culture to emphasize long hours and an intense pace.
The company notified employees that it will close its offices and cut badge access until Monday, according to two sources. One source said that security officers began kicking employees out of the office on Thursday evening.
Many Twitter users had already been sulking over the changes made to the microblogging platform since the Tesla CEO’s takeover. Now, the mass resignation has added to the concerns about the company’s future. The hashtag “RIP Twitter” started trending on Twitter, where users shared hilarious memes and posts while highlighting that the platform might soon shut down. For many, Twitter seemed to be on the brink of collapse, considering the chaos it has witnessed in the past few weeks.
It’s unclear how, if at all, the resignations might impact the social media site, but there’s a fair amount of pessimism as the top trending hashtag on the site right now is #RIPTwitter.