Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk is handcuffed to the Twitter bird symbol
Britta Pedersen/Getty Images; Twitter; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
Elon Musk is shaking up Twitter. Here’s everything you need to know.
From the blunt email to Twitter employees about layoffs to angry advertisers, a lot is happening.
Insider has exclusive insights from employees, advertisers and others about working with Musk.
Elon Musk has stormed through Twitter like a hurricane after taking possession of the company on October 27.
Since then, the happenings inside and surrounding the company have been fast and furious.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Mass Twitter layoffs began in earnest on Friday
Top execs including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and top lawyer Vijaya Gadde were jettisoned by Musk on the Thursday evening he assumed control.
They were collectively due $88 million in golden-parachute payoffs from their publicly-disclosed employment contracts. However, two news outlets reported that Musk dismissed them “for cause” in an attempt to avoid owing severance payouts and unvested stock awards and that the execs are now evaluating their recourse options.
Other executives were also either quietly dismissed or publicly announced their exits. This included Twitter’s general manager of core technology being cut while out on leave after the death of his wife.
By Friday morning, news of layoffs spread fast after Twitter employees discovered they were locked out of their laptops before they were even told that their jobs were eliminated, including one employee who is 8-months pregnant.
And it didn’t take long for at least one lawsuit from employees to be filed.
Read the blunt Twitter email telling employees that their jobs are axedRead the memo Twitter sent to its UK employees, cutting them off from its internal systemsRead Elon Musk’s email sent to remaining Twitter employees about their ‘exciting future’Twitter employees share layoff news, praise coworkers and critiques of Elon MuskTwitter slapped with lawsuit saying company didn’t give employees enough notice of job cuts
Musk also said he expects to implement a Deep Cuts Plan’ and slash infrastructure costs by $1 billion a year.
And this kind of chaos is only the beginning, warns one former SpaceX VP who says Elon Musk can be ‘vicious’ in the workplace.
Twitter Losing Its Most Active Users
(Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Twitter employees describe hellish conditions
In the lead-up to the layoffs, employees described Hunger Games-like working conditions.
Musk imported an inner circle of advisors from his other companies Tesla, the Boring Company, Neuralink and his personal life. Engineers were told to complete work “sprints”over the weekend and VPs told to compile stack-ranking lists of who to keep, and who to layoff.
Some Twitter workers are calling Elon Musk’s advisers ‘Elon’s goons,’ a report saysLeaked memo shows Twitter engineers being told to work with ‘maniacal’ energy and pitch ideas to the tech billionaire directlyElon Musk takes away ‘days of rest’ at Twitter in another major shift from Jack Dorsey’s leadership style‘I don’t want to work with these clowns.’ Inside the culture war that Elon Musk has unleashed at Twitter.Fired Twitter CFO, who’s getting a $25.4 million golden parachute, says ‘the past 6 months have pulled on every mental muscle I’ve developed in 48 years’Inside Elon Musk’s first day as leader of Twitter: Cancelled meetings, fake layoffs, orders to print out code, and a team of Musk advisers camped out in a separate part of the company’s HQ.
The one bit of good news employees received before the layoffs took place: Twitter was honoring its obligation to grant their stock tranches that vested on November 1, and pay them $54.20 per share.
Stephen King says Twitter should pay him, not the other way around.
AP Photo/Francois Mori
Musk clashes with celebrity Twitter users
Musk’s philosophy that Twitter must change its content moderation rules to emphasize “freedom of speech” has had all kinds of side effects.
Use of N-word on Twitter jumped by almost 500% after trolls test limits on free speech‘TrumpIsDead’ is trending on Twitter after a verified user apparently decided to test moderation of the platform LeBron James said Elon Musk needs to address ‘scary AF’ surge of N-word use on TwitterTrevor Noah jabbed at Elon Musk’s early Twitter tenureElon Musk has been taking digs at AOCShonda Rhimes and Sara Bareilles are among the celebrities announcing that they have quit Twitter after Elon Musk takeover
One of their weirder circumstances was when horror author Stephen King balked at a plan to charge $20 a month for verification so Musk immediately lowered the planned price to $8.
Stephen King compares Elon Musk with a fictional character who cons friends into doing chores and charges themElon Musk jokes about overpaying for Twitter and reiterates plan to charge $8 a month
Cathie Wood is an investor in Elon Musk’s Twitter and believes in his leadership.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo
Advertisers are nervously pausing their spend
Musk has been wooing advertisers, his major Twitter customers, but they are wary.
Companies are suspending ads on Twitter after Elon Musk’s takeover. Here’s the full list of brands pressing pause on advertising.As chaos continues with Twitter under Musk, advertiser patience is starting to wear thinIn closed-door meeting, Elon Musk tells 100 top ad execs that he will improve brand safety on Twitter and that he will personally oversee its new video product
Twitters investors remain happy but VCs smell blood in the water
Ark Invest owns a private stake in Twitter via its venture fund as Cathie Wood talks up its ‘Super App’ potentialFor the first time in years, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are ‘weak’ and VCs are eager to back alternatives, they say.