Hundreds of Twitter employees are estimated to have decided to quit the company following a Thursday deadline from new owner Elon Musk that staffers must take “long hours at high intensity,” or leave.
Employees who decided to quit posted on Twitter’s hashtag #LoveWhereYouWorked that it was their last day at the social network.
Over 500 employees wrote farewell messages, a source familiar with the notes said. The exact number of employees leaving the company was not confirmed.
On Wednesday, in an email to staff Musk said Twitter would “need to be extremely hardcore” to succeed. “Those who chose to stay should expect long, intense hours of work. Those who left would receive three months’ severance pay,” he wrote. Employees were required to choose by Thursday afternoon.
Since Musk finalized his $44 billion purchase of the platform in late October, the world richest man has had a rocky start and the helm of his new company.
Musk already laid off half of Twitter’s 7,500 full-time employees on November 4. He also reportedly cut thousands of contractors last weekend, and even fired employees who criticized him publicly.
The departures include engineers responsible for fixing bugs and preventing service outages, raising questions about the stability of the platform.
Late on Thursday Musk tweeted that he was not worried about resignations as “the best people are staying.”
