Hundreds of Twitter employees would have decided to quit rather than follow the new course given to the social network by Elon Musk. These would be the results of the ultimatum given by the new sole owner of the company to Twitter workers. Musk had asked them via email to decide whether to agree to work “as diehards” at the company’s new course or to walk away with three months’ salary as severance pay.
And the first results, according to the American media, would see a part of the 2,900 employees (those remaining after the 50% cut in the workforce decided by Musk in his first week at the head of the social network) opting to leave. There would be at least 180 who say they have done so in an online forum called Blind, which allows you to take surveys anonymously.
25% said they stayed reluctantly, while only 7% said they stayed convinced. Partial numbers. Difficult to verify. But according to the San Francisco breaking latest news the number of people would be so conspicuous as to have made the hashtag viral in these hours #RIPTwitter which is the most popular discussion topic on the platform right now. Half a million tweets with that hashtag at six in the morning Italian time.
Elon Musk meanwhile stubborn security. On the social network, he shared new posts on the traffic and use records that Twitter would have in these first few weeks with him at the head of the company. “We have again reached new peaks of Twitter usage”, he tweeted, to then add “Le that sink in”, the phrase already shared when he first entered the company’s San Francisco office, an invitation to the company to get used to in his presence.
But always on Twitter, workers who are preparing to leave the company post videos and photos of their last hours. Like Matt Miller, who posts a video greeting from inside what appears to be Twitter headquarters, in which he greets four colleagues and says, “We’re all about to be fired.” Jessalyn Johnson, a former manager, instead posts photos: “I’m leaving the job that has been my dream. Here I spent the best four and a half years”. A long list of goodbyes. Including that of several software engineers. A fact that for The Verge could lead to serious problems for Musk and his new social network. One among all, the security of the platform itself.