Since taking control of the microblogging service in late October, Elon Musk has been shaking the tree on Twitter. His most recent action caused office closures and a staff exodus.
Musk gave Twitter employees an ultimatum earlier this week, telling them to work long hours at great intensity or vacate their desks by Thursday, Nov. 17.
The company momentarily closed its offices as hundreds of employees walked out as a result of a significant proportion of them choosing the second option, which is believed to contain three months’ worth of severance money, according to sources.
Additionally, Twitter made the temporary suspension of all badge access known and asked staff to refrain from sharing sensitive company information online, with the press, or in other public forums until Monday, Nov. 21.
Email to Twitter staff saying offices are closed till Monday.
"I didn’t want to work for someone who threatened us over email multiple times" says one employee who's just resigned pic.twitter.com/Xd9s36f0ru
— James Clayton (@JamesClayton5) November 18, 2022
180 people were surveyed using the business app Blind, and 42% responded, “Taking exit option, I’m free!” according to Reuters on November 18. In a different survey, 50% of participants predicted that 50% of the workforce would depart.
Users have been looking for alternatives, so it’s not just workers who are leaving Twitter in Musk’s wake. Mastodon is one that has recently gained attention and has witnessed a spike in new registrations.
A federation of independently managed, networked machines running open-source software makes up the decentralized social network.
Mastodon announced on Nov. 12 that it has gained over a million new users since the Twitter transaction was finalized. Since Musk’s acquisition, Twitter has lost the same amount of users, according to a Nov. 3 MIT analysis.
The decentralized social media network Bluesky Social, which aims to give users control over their data and will feature portable user accounts and access to “an open market of algorithms,” was also unveiled by the former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey in October.
Dorsey hopes that his platform, which runs on Bitcoin, will entice users away from Web2 social media, which is centralized and full of spam and scams.
