Source: Twitter
On Wednesday, Musk carried a sink and barbarians barged into the Twitter door.
Netizens rejoiced. A netizen posted a meme: Musk's head P to Thanos' neck, he snapped his fingers, and then the entire Twitter company was wiped out. After all, it was previously reported that Musk would lay off 75% of Twitter's staff.
However, when Musk visited the company, he told the employees around him, "(75% of the layoff) does not know who said it, there is no such thing." Hearing the new boss's firm answer, the Twitter employees present breathed a sigh of relief.
What they didn't expect, however, was that in less than a week, the world's richest man repented again, directly using a rare and ruthless means in Silicon Valley to launch a major layoff, pushing these employees down the abyss.
Image source: @Grandoldmemes
| A pre-publicized workplace "massacre"
According to the understanding of Silicon Star people, in fact, since Musk took over the company, employees have been panicking.
Before the news of the mass layoffs broke and was confirmed, employees received "effective immediately" notices of termination on Tuesday and Wednesday.
And since Musk and his gang entered, Twitter has also issued a "code freeze" order for employees, not to upload new code to the production environment.
On Monday, many employees in key positions at Twitter, such as Trust & Safety, found themselves denied access to their day-to-day system tools and completely unable to do their jobs. There are only about 15 people left on the team so far, but Twitter claims that thousands of "front-line auditors" (outsourced if nothing else) are still working.
Considering that just a week later, the biennial and all-important midterm elections in the United States will arrive on schedule, and the loss of these tools means that these employees will not be able to review, flag or even block information and accounts on the platform that spread false content and try to disrupt the election situation.
To keep their jobs, a Twitter engineering director told the team, "Don't wait for an opportunity to get you... Seize the opportunity yourself", it is recommended that employees make some new products and features themselves, find opportunities to present directly to Musk, in case he likes to leave people behind.
Employees were still using the company's internal messaging software Slack, but found that Musk and his subordinates began to monitor Slack channels soon after taking over the company, so everyone turned to various unofficial IM software (such as TG, Signal, etc.) and the anonymous workplace social platform Blind to exchange information.
Everyone knows in their hearts that their fate is short, but they just don't know when they will be notified. As early as last week, a considerable number of current employees publicly posted job search information on LinkedIn, as well as publicly organized and participated in job information sharing communities.
Wednesday, November 2. News began to leak out from Twitter that Musk plans to lay off about 3,700 people, and the official notice will be set for Friday.
Then, at about three or four o'clock in the afternoon on Thursday, November 3, the exact news began to come out: the layoff work had begun, and the corresponding proportions and lists had been distributed to all departments and groups.
Even, the office system permissions such as employees' mailboxes and Slack channels were denied and they could not log in. An employee has a letter: The layoff email is coming.
Image source: Image source: Internet
The email shows that Twitter will receive corresponding email notifications on Friday, both affected and unaffected employees; And in order to avoid employees retaliating against the company for "deleting the library and leaving people", the company will also completely close all the company's offices on Friday and suspend the authority of all employee badges.
The email was Musk's first employee newsletter since Musk officially took over the company last Thursday, a full week after taking over the company.
That's right, until this email, Musk had not made any open, formal, and all communication to the company's employees - the employees knew in their hearts that this person was not good, but they did not expect that the first formal communication from Musk a week after taking over the company turned out to be layoffs... And in the opinion of many, the letter is rather merciless.
According to people who call themselves Twitter employees, almost 80 or 90 percent of their groups and those of their friends have been laid off. Some groups are "one pot end".
Even more outrageous, according to the employee's description, the product manager (PM) was also laid off. By the end of this round, the ratio of remaining engineers to PM will be as high as 80:1.
Image source: WeChat group
Source: Image source: WeChat group
The Slack channel suddenly came alive.
At first, the employee wrote a goodbye message to colleagues and friends and posted it on the channel. And then somehow someone sent a salute emoji.
"Has the Red Wedding begun?" An employee quippedly asked in the Slack channel, borrowing from the famous massacre in Game of Thrones, which totaled about 3,500 deaths, which is about the same number as the number of Twitter layoffs.
Suddenly, there were people frantically swiping salutations and ❤️ emojis in all internal Slack channels... Beneath the overwhelming expressions, there was a mixed emotion in the Slack channel.
Then the climax came: Musk himself was suddenly pulled into a large group of employees.
Image source: WeChat group
On Thursday evening, Joan Deitchman, a former senior engineering manager at Twitter, wrote on his group's Slack channel:
People who are still alive on this channel after today, I want you to remember how great this team is. We stand together, upholding integrity and morality, supporting each other, and not yielding to power in order to do what is right... Keep going, keep going!
Deitchman's team, called META, is working on the transparency of Twitter's algorithms. The team is studying why fake news on the platform is more amplified by algorithms, and developing methods and tools that can help the company's employees and users — a team that's unfortunately been wiped out in this layoff.
These Twitter employees are using every minute and second left to salute their comrades and say a final goodbye - until the moment their number is also blown up.
Image source: Image source: @JoanDeitchman
Image source: Image source: @CaseyNewton
The number of people in every Slack channel within Twitter is decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
This feeling of witnessing history unfold and witnessing one's colleagues and friends being "slaughtered" in the workplace is chilling.
Silicon Star people have heard from Twitter employees and peripherals around them that in the past 24 hours, there has even been an unusual "unity" within Twitter:
Some people have voluntarily resigned on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Others survived Thursday's massacre but also submitted their resignations.
At the same time, Musk not only removed a large number of Twitter internal workplaces, but also closed all employee resource communities (BRGs), including but not limited to women's organizations (Twitter), Asian employees organizations (Twitter Asians), and blackbirds.
Image source: Twitter 2021 IDEA Annual Report
After the layoffs were officially announced, many people immediately raised a key issue: Twitter's round of layoffs violated federal and California labor protection laws.
Both the federal and California states have a bill called WARN, whose full name is the Employee Adjustment and Retraining Notice Act. The law requires employers to give 30 or 60 days' notice to employees who are about to be laid off.
On Thursday evening, five employees had filed a class-action lawsuit against Twitter.
The five employees in the lawsuit, Cornet, De Caires, Kindel, Camacho and Pan, were all fired on Tuesday (Nov. 1) and Thursday (Nov. 3). The complaint alleges that Twitter did not provide 60 days' written notice of the termination process for these employees, which violated federal and California WARN laws, and did not disclose any information about severance compensation.
It is worth noting that the plaintiffs chose Lichten & Liss-Riordan, a well-known labor rights law firm in California. Its partner, Shannon Liss-Riordan, has previously represented Tesla employees in cases of "illegal layoffs." The case was eventually settled privately between the laid-off employee and Tesla, with Tesla paying an unknown amount of settlement.
Source: Twitter Former employee files class-action lawsuit against the company. Image credit: Federal District Court of California
According to the current understanding of the Silicon Star people, Musk also realized that this decision was too hasty and may suffer losses in the process.
As a result, Twitter today contacted a large number of affected employees to inform them that they would enter a period of "invisible working time": that is, they are not actually working properly, but they are still nominally employed.
Source: Image from the Internet
Among them, the period for employees living in New York State will last until the beginning of February next year, that is, 90 days in compliance with local laws; Employees in California and elsewhere in the U.S. lasted until early January, or 60 days.
Twitter has also begun negotiations with those affected by the layoffs over severance packages.
Twitter told the employees that if they signed the agreement, they would receive an additional month of salary and benefits as compensation.
In contrast, another company that recently laid off employees listed all possible problems such as severance compensation, bonuses, unused vacation, medical insurance, stock release, and immigrant visa support in the notification email (below).
Source: Network
| The first week of chaos, advertisers fled
In addition to major layoffs to reduce costs, Musk is also trying his best to retain advertisers.
This Friday morning, Musk posted a tweet that almost personally acknowledged the fact that advertisers are pulling out of the Twitter platform:
"Twitter's revenue has dropped significantly due to pressure from activist groups to advertisers, and while there has been no change in content moderation, we have done everything we can to appease activists." Extreme chaos! They are trying to undermine freedom of speech in the United States. ”
Image source: @elonmusk
By "radical groups," Musk refers to liberal ideological institutions including Accountability Tech and Media Matters for America. These nonprofits launched a global project after Musk took over the company, calling on and even forcing big advertisers to boycott Twitter.
At present, Twitter's top 20 advertisers, including Disney, Procter & Gamble, AB InBev, etc., have indicated that they have or are considering suspending advertising on Twitter.
Brands including Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche and others under the Volkswagen Group have suspended ad spending on Twitter. Carlsberg Group also said it has asked the marketing team to suspend marketing content on Twitter. REI Co-op, a well-known American outdoor brand, not only stopped advertising, but even stopped posting content on Twitter altogether, and its account has not posted any content since November 2.
There is also such an advertising executive, saying that Musk called him and some other advertising consultants to a meeting, and as a result, Musk's layoffs after the meeting ran counter to his promise and were immediately hacked by Masquera.
Source: @LouPas
It's no longer news that Musk doesn't like liberals, and he has moved the idea of moving his company's headquarters to Texas a few years ago. However, since taking over Twitter, he has completely stopped hiding his preference for Republicans, ultra-conservatives, and conspiracy theorists.
One of the most typical cases is the last week when a mob broke into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the US House of Representatives. Pelosi herself was not present, but her husband was seriously injured and has not yet recovered. After the incident, netizens quickly discovered that the mob David DePape was deeply influenced by ultra-conservative conspiracy theories, and the police investigation also investigated that the purpose of this person was to assassinate Pelosi herself.
Musk, on the other hand, posted a tweet saying that "there is something else behind this" and quoted a well-known conspiracy theory fake news website - although he quickly deleted the tweet, it was still criticized by a large number of netizens and public figures. He couldn't accept the criticism and later sent a tweet insinuating that his New York Times was a fake news site.
Image source: Newshub, @elonmusk
On his first day at the helm, Musk wrote an open letter to advertisers asking them to remain loyal to themselves and the Twitter platform.
In fact, however, according to an ad tracking platform MediaRadar, the number of advertisers on the platform has been steadily declining since Musk suddenly announced his acquisition of Twitter in the first half of the year: from 3,900 in May, to 2,300 in August, and to a slight recovery to 2,900 in September.
Don't think this rebound is a good thing: Twitter's advertisers have been "shuffling," with hundreds or even thousands of clients pulling out every month, and new clients coming in. Before July, Twitter had more than 1,000 new customers a month, but since the ongoing turmoil between him and Twitter, the number of new customers has dropped to 200 in July.
If the confidence of advertisers cannot be maintained, Musk will only have two ways to pay off the money owed to the investment bank for this acquisition:
The first is to pay out of your own pocket (you have to continue to sell Tesla stock),
The second is to persuade Twitter users who are also losing crazy to become paid users...
The problem is that in the advancement of paid projects, Musk's progress is also quite bad. Previously, it was supposed to be 20 knives per month, but it was sprayed wildly by the well-known writer Stephen King, and the price was changed to $8 per month.
Image source: Image source: @StephenKing
However, it is this $8, users do not want to pay - the reason is definitely not that they can't afford it, but Musk and his small group, in the matter of promoting payment, the posture is too ugly.
The following tweet is from David Sacks. He is an investor, PayPal gangster, podcast creator, and has also entered Twitter's "war room" because of his close relationship with Musk, and is currently one of the executives who call the shots within the company (although some Twitter employees revealed that he is basically Musk's ass in the company, and wherever Musk goes, Musk will never sit down when he stands). ）
"Those powerful elites are angry not because they have to pay $8 a month," he said. They are angry that anyone can pay $8/month. ”
Source: @DavidSacks
This kind of rhetoric bordering on poverty and moral kidnapping, do you say it can have a positive effect on Twitter's paid projects?
Finally, there is another rumor in the market:
Musk's deliberate play of monkeys on social networks all day long, messing up the relationship between Twitter and advertisers, is a deliberate mess to get the company into some kind of major disadvantage.
Under labor law, companies can make mass layoffs without notice — without even paying severance compensation.
The problem is that we're talking about Musk, and no one really knows what's going on in his head or what his strategy really is.
The only thing he is sure of is uncertainty.