When Elon Musk told his Twitter engineers to go hardcore or go home, those who remained were clearly up for some marathon sessions, although perhaps they weren’t signing up for a situation that looks like a reenactment of the Eagles’ classic “Hotel California.”
According to Forbes’ talkative sources, the multi-company CEO is converting some of Twitter’s HQ office space into “modest bedrooms” that include “unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room, telepresence monitors.”
One corporate boudoir, a photo of which was shared with the publication, had a dazzling orange carpet, a wooden bedside table, a queen bed, and table lamp and two office chairs, for those who can’t wait to collaborate until the morning.
His Muskness didn’t explain the rationale for fitting out several offices, with some staff assuming it is for people that want to check out anytime they like but never leave, working very late and then catch some Zzzs on-site before resetting the clock and re-starting another day of coding or other work.
No mention was made of showers or facilities to freshen up in the San Francisco headquarters. Surely Elon won’t expect his best remainers to use the corporate water closets to have a quick wipe around to freshen up for more of the same. Maybe this was the use case for the kitchen sink that Musk arrived with when he first bought the social media platform.
The lack of explanation hasn’t gone down well with everyone in Twitter’s workforce. “It’s not a good look,” one said. “It’s yet another unspoken sign of disrespect. There is no discussion. Just like, beds showed up.”
Last month, Musk issued an ultimatum to employees as he moulds Twitter 2.0, telling them he planned to make it “extremely hardcore.” He added: “This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
He set a deadline of 5pm on November 17 for staff to decide if they wanted to stick around and sign a “pledge.” Those who decided they desired some work-life-balance and didn’t commit to Musk then left by default – although European employees apparently were not pleased with the missive, with the references to long hours not previously agreed upon in their contracts appearing to contravene local labor law. Twitter has since closed its office in Brussels.
This followed an earlier redundancy process in which around half of Twitter’s 7,500 staff were cut and many contractors were also booted. It also came after Musk fired software Eric Frohnhoefer, who’d publicly called him out on Twitter over the billionaire’s explanation for performance degradation on the platform.
More were forced out of the door including principal software engineer Yao Yue, software engineer Sasha Solomon, and backend engineer Nick Morgan.
Musk then mocked the staff he’d had fired over disagreements they’d had with him. “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.” ®
