The New York Times reported on the 17th (local time) that Twitter employees are continuing to resign in a row after the deadline for Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s ultimatum to leave if they doesn’t like high-intensity work.
As the office is temporarily closed, the goodbye post is being used as another platform, the Guardian and others added.
Twitter employees spent the whole day agonizing over Musk’s email to answer the ultimatum by 5 p.m. on the 17th. Musk sent an e-mail to an employee the previous day and asked him to sign the pledge, saying, “If you are not going to accept high-intensity work for a long time, leave the company.”
An employee of Twitter said on the morning of the 17th that 50 to 75% of the 60 team members planned to leave the company.
Among the employees who refused to sign, the number of engineers managing critical systems has reportedly decreased to 2, 1, and even 0. They are also said to account for a significant portion of Twitter’s trust and safety policy team. This prompted concerns among managers that their ability to continue Twitter operations was threatened.
The Wall Street Journal introduced that some employees expressed doubts about whether Musk could actually receive the severance pay he would provide.
Prior to the ultimatum, Musk cut 3,700 employees, nearly half of the 7,500 employees, earlier this month, and fired more than 3,000 contract workers. This week, he fired an employee who criticized him on Twitter.
However, some employees expressed their intention to remain due to curiosity about the company’s new policy. Musk eased his order to return to the office a week ago as more employees were leaving the company refusing to sign. He allowed remote work to employees who said managers were making excellent contributions.
Mass layoffs continue on Twitter, and related lawsuits continue. Recently fired full-time and contract workers filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court, claiming that Twitter violated federal and state laws that require prior notice in case of mass layoffs. Disabled employees also filed a lawsuit, claiming that it is discrimination against the disabled to withdraw their telecommuting and force them to work for a high intensity of long-term work.
Shannon Rees-Leriden, a lawyer representing these lawsuits, stressed that Musk is putting company workers in great pain and anxiety within a short period of time after the Twitter acquisition.
Some employees complain that they are staying in the U.S. on an H1-B visa and are forced to leave the U.S. if they fail to find a new job within 60 days of dismissal.
Bloomberg added that the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said in its 2020 guidelines that remote work can be an appropriate convenience when it does not put excessive pressure on the company.
