Twitter staff flee after Musk’s ‘extremely hardcore’ ultimatum

Twitter is bleeding employees following an ultimatum by Elon Musk to be “extremely hardcore” at work or quit.

Some staff took to Twitter on Thursday to announce they were leaving after Musk sent an email to employees asking them to pledge to work “long hours at high intensity”.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk wrote in the internal memo obtained by multiple media outlets, adding that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

“I may be #exceptional, but gosh darn it, I’m just not #hardcore,” tweeted Andrea Horst, a former employee.

Horst and many other departing employees announced their decision with the accompanying hashtag #lovewhereyouworked.

While it is unclear how many employees quit following Musk’s ultimatum, the latest departures come as the company’s workforce is a fraction of its usual size after the Tesla CEO fired more than half of its 7,500 staff.

Insults aimed at Elon Musk have apparently been projected onto the side of Twitter HQ.

The company’s offices have reportedly been closed until Monday after Musk issued an ultimatum for staff to agree to long hours, or leave ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/yLWHw9v81k

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 18, 2022

“RIPTwitter” and the names of rival social media networks including Mastodon ranked among Twitter’s trending topics in the United States as the departures were announced.

Musk, who runs four other companies including Tesla and SpaceX, has attracted controversy for instituting radical changes at Twitter since buying the company for $44bn late last month.

Twitter last week was forced to suspend a new $7.99 subscription service after Musk’s decision to scrap the platform’s verification policies led to a flood of impersonator accounts, including fake profiles of former United States President Donald Trump and NBA star LeBron James.

The upheaval at the social media giant has prompted major brands such as General Motors, Audi, General Mills and United Airlines to suspend their advertising as they seek clarity on the platform’s moderation and misinformation policies.

Musk earlier this week told a business forum he had “too much work” since buying Twitter and he doubted that most people would want to be him.