In an article about Twitter's internal changes this week, former Uber engineer Gergely Orosz claims that Musk's email describes a "Twitter 2.0" that will be led by engineers, with "people developing outstanding code" taking on a more significant role within the organisation.
The email was sent two weeks after Musk ordered mass layoffs that affected approximately half of Twitter's global workforce and one week after his initial meeting with Twitter employees. Musk stated, "What works at SpaceX and Tesla is people being in the office and being hardcore," at his first meeting with Twitter employees following the layoffs.
This language was also used in an email Musk sent to Twitter employees today. He told them they “will need to be extremely hardcore.” Musk has asked Tesla employees to “go super hardcore” in the past to meet goals.
Here is the whole email Musk sent to Twitter employees:
Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.
Twitter will also be much more engineering-driven. Design and product management will still be very important and report to me, but those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway. At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.
If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below:
Anyone who has not done so by 5pm ET tomorrow (Thursday) will receive three months of severance.
Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.
Elon
Musk once told Twitter employees that if they didn’t launch a new version of Twitter Blue with paid blue check verification by a certain date, they would be fired. The new Twitter Blue, which costs $7.99 a month and gives you a blue “verified” check mark, eventually came out, and it quickly led to impersonation and chaos on the social network.
Musk is said to have ignored Twitter’s internal warnings about his paid verification scheme, and after just two days, Twitter had to stop new Blue enrollments because problems caused advertisers to pause their campaigns. Musk now says that Twitter Blue will be relaunched on November 29 “to make sure it is rock solid.”
Musk has also recently fired up to 5,500 more contract Twitter employees and admitted that he fired an engineer for telling him he was wrong on Twitter. Some people who reportedly complained in the company’s private Slack were also let go after making public complaints.