Elon Musk Gives Twitter Staff 2 Days To Decide If They Want To Stay

Twitter CEO Elon Musk gave staff an ultimatum this morning: decide whether they want to be part of the new “hardcore” Twitter by 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, or be let go with three months severance pay.

Musk’s email went out this morning, titled “A Fork in the Road,” asking those who wanted to stay to click on a link. Anyone who didn’t by the deadline would be gone, according to copies of the email sent to Forbes by three sources familiar with the matter.

He outlined that to build “Twitter 2.0,” the company would need to be “extremely hardcore,” working long hours and at high intensity. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

Twitter hadn’t responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. The Washington Post was first to report on the email.

The new chief said the new Twitter will be more engineering focused and those who write “great code” will hold the most sway. “If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below… Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful,” Musk added.

The email landed following mass layoffs of Twitter’s over 7,000 staff, as well as many resignations, most recently including the company’s privacy, security and trust leadership. One engineer was also fired by Musk over Twitter, though the CEO later deleted his tweet telling the staffer they were gone. The former employee later told Forbes Musk and his Twitter team were “a bunch of cowards.”

Yesterday also saw reports that internal Slack messages and staff Twitter accounts were being monitored. At least 20 of those who made critical comments about the company and its new leader were let go, including engineer Nick Morgan, who wrote on Twitter that “I can only assume this was for not showing 100% loyalty in Slack. I’ve heard the same thing has happened to many others now.”

Vast numbers of contracted content moderators have also been let go, alongside various trust and safety team members, leading to concerns that the company may struggle to deal with illegal content on its platform.