The crisis at Twitter reached new heights on Friday as hundreds of employees were reported to have rejected Elon Musk’s ultimatum to keep working for the business, threatening its ability to keep operating.
As the company temporarily closed its offices to staff, Twitter users began saying their goodbyes and linking to accounts on other platforms.
#RIPTwitter, #TwitterDown, Mastodon and Myspace were all trending on the platform after the deadline passed on Musk’s ultimatum for the remaining workforce to sign up for “long hours at high intensity”, or leave. It has been estimated that hundreds of the remaining staff opted to go.
The departures include many engineers responsible for fixing bugs and preventing service outages, raising questions about the stability of the platform amid the loss of employees and prompting hurried debates among managers over who should be asked to return, current and former employees said.
Musk eased off a return-to-office mandate he had issued a week ago, telling employees on Thursday they would be allowed to work remotely if their managers asserted they were making “an excellent contribution”.
Twitter later announced via email that it would close “our office buildings” and disable employee badge access until Monday, the New York Times reported.
Online, users were speculating that the site could go down in a matter of hours or days.
On Thursday evening, the version of the Twitter app used by employees began slowing down, according to one source familiar with the matter, who estimated that the public version of Twitter was at risk of breaking during the night. Website DownDetector reported a significant uptick in user reports of issues on the site.
“If it does break, there is no one left to fix things in many areas,” the person said, who declined to be named for fear of retribution.
The news prompted an outpouring of grief on the platform, and prompted many users to link to their accounts on Instagram or Mastodon as an alternative.
