San Francisco, USA. AFP.
Twitter's future seemed uncertain yesterday, Friday, after numerous engineers at the influential social network took Elon Musk at his word and announced they would leave the company, rather than stay and give their all "unconditionally."
According to former employees and several US media outlets, hundreds of employees responded "no" to the new owner and boss's ultimatum, giving them the choice between working tirelessly "to build a revolutionary Twitter 2.0" or leaving with three months' pay.
Half of the Californian group's 7,500 employees were laid off two weeks ago, and another 700 had already resigned over the summer, even before they were certain the purchase and sale transaction would go through.
“My friends are gone, a storm is coming, and there’s no financial incentive. What would you do? Would you sacrifice the time you spend with your kids during the holidays for vague promises and the chance to get rich? Richer?” summed up Peter Clowes, a software engineer and director at Twitter and “layoff survivor,” according to his LinkedIn profile.
But only “three engineers out of 75” on his team survived. “If I had stayed, I would have been on duty almost constantly, with very little support, for an indefinite period working on complex computer systems with which I have no expertise,” he noted. Furthermore, “there has been no shared vision. No five-year plan like at Tesla. (…) It’s a pure test of loyalty.”
“What should Twitter do now?” tweeted Elon Musk yesterday, Friday. The Tesla CEO wanted to buy the Californian company in the spring, only to abandon the project in the summer and be forced to acquire it at the end of October for $44 billion to avoid a lawsuit. Since then, Musk has mobilized teams day and night on controversial projects that have had to be postponed, launched a massive social media plan before having to recall key people, and made promises to advertisers while simultaneously issuing threats. On Thursday night, many users of the social network, including former collaborators, journalists, and analysts, wondered if Twitter's end was near.
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