Chaos and Tears: Insiders Speak About Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover

In a recent article, the Verge outlines the chaos at Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover and implementation of his “hardcore” vision for the social media company.

In an article titled “Inside Elon’s ‘Extremely Hardcore’ Twitter,” The Verge outlines some of the key changes at Twitter since Elon Musk’s takeover of the firm. Musk’s chaotic management style left the notoriously woke leftist employee base on the verge of tears.

Elon Musk’s Halloween costume (Taylor Hill /Getty)

In a demonstration of the chaos that ensued during the first full day of his takeover, Musk instructed employees to print 50 pages of code they had done in the last 30 days. A few hours later, they were instructed to shred any printed code and prepare to display the code on their computers.

The Verge writes:

On Musk’s first full day in charge, October 28, the executive assistants sent Twitter engineers a Slack message at the behest of the Goons: The boss wanted to see their code. Employees were instructed to “print out 50 pages of code you’ve done in the last 30 days” and get ready to show it to Musk in person. Panicked engineers started hunting around the office for printers. Many of the devices weren’t functional, having sat unused for two years during the pandemic. Eventually, a group of executive assistants offered to print some engineers’ code for them if they would send the file as a PDF.

Within a couple of hours, the Goons’ assistants sent out a new missive to the team: “update: Stop printing,” it read. “Please be ready to show your recent code (within last 30-60 preferably) on your computer. If you have already printed, please shred in the bins on SF-Tenth. Thank you!”

Amir Shevat, the manager of Twitter’s developer platform which has since been completely disbanded, described his experience working under Musk as a major reshuffle of the organization began. Shevat was scheduled to speak with Musk advisor David Sacks about his role at the company:

Shevat had been scheduled to meet with Sacks at 1 p.m. to walk him through the developer platform’s product road map. (Musk was technically Shevat’s direct manager, but the two never met one-on-one.) Every hour, an assistant messaged Shevat to say the meeting was delayed. When it finally began, around 8 p.m., Shevat explained what his team did — they ran the services that allowed outside developers to create apps that connected to Twitter, a feature of any major platform. It would be a crucial component if Musk pursued his publicly stated aspiration to make Twitter a “super-app” like WeChat, which has a thriving economy of mini-apps made by outside engineers.

Shevat thought Sacks seemed bored — he spent most of the meeting checking his phone. “He didn’t want to understand anything,” Shevat says. It made him want to cry, especially since he had actually been eager to work with Musk. “I would have worked really hard for him,” he says.

Breitbart News recently reported that many of Twitter’s laid off workers received smaller severance packages than Musk promised.

Fortune reports that Twitter employees laid off in November 2020 have finally received their official severance agreements, although the compensation is less than many expected. According to sources familiar with the situation, the agreements were sent out by a third-party service provider called CPT Group on Saturday, January 9, 2023, after multiple delays. Not all former employees received the agreements, and many of the emails ended up in spam folders.

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, Nov, 29, 2022. Twitter Inc. said it ended a policy designed to suppress false or misleading information about Covid-19, part of Musk’s polarizing mission to remake the social network as a place for unmoderated speech. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, Nov, 29, 2022. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

The layoffs were made after Elon Musk took control of the social media giant in late October 2022, with about three-fourths of the company’s 7,500-strong workforce being let go. At the time, Musk tweeted that those affected would receive “three months of severance compensation.” However, the agreements sent out on January 9 provide laid-off US employees with just one month of base pay as severance.

The Los Angeles Times reported that previous Twitter leadership had pledged to offer at least two months’ worth of severance pay, prorated performance bonuses, extended visa support, money for health care continuation, and the cash value of equity that would vest within three months. However, the agreements do not include any additional compensation. Some employees did receive COBRA, which is money for health insurance continuation, but it is not clear how many were affected.