The future is uncertain for Twitter employees. Tormented by the takeover of the social network by Elon Musk, in discussion since April, employees are subject to what they call a “chaos tax”. A survey of wall street journal published on May 20 unveils their fears.
At the heart of tensions
It’s not been good working for Twitter lately. As a reminder, the company is being acquired by billionaire Elon Musk for 44 billion dollars. Recently, the CEO of Tesla had frozen his acquisition project by demanding more details on the volume of fake accounts and spam present on the social network. For Twitter, it’s less than 5% of profiles. For Elon Musk, we are talking about at least 25% of fake accounts.
Mark Zuckerberg is not done with the Cambridge Analytica scandal
For investors, the fear is that Elon Musk will renegotiate the purchase price of the social network. As a reminder, the billionaire is offering $54.20 per share. In a reply to a tweet posted on May 21, the SpaceX executive suggested that if the number of fake accounts was around 25%, the buyout price, then set at $44 billion, should cost 25% less.
Discussions between Elon Musk and platform employees are tense. A few days before, Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter, detailed in a thread how the social network calculated the number of bots and said, “ sharing an overview of the estimation process with Elon “. To which the person replied… with a poop emoji.
?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022
This expectation, for several months now, has created a heavy atmosphere on the Twitter teams. The number of unanswered questions and concerns continue to grow.
On May 13, in an internal conversation to which The Wall Street Journal was able to gain access, Jay Sullivan, Twitter’s new chief product officer, said “ expect the “chaos tax” and the ups and downs to continue “.
Jay Sullivan replaces one of the two executives fired earlier in the month by Parag Agrawal. Bruce Falck and Kayvon Beykpour, responsible for the product sector, were unceremoniously dismissed for budgetary reasons. Kayvon Beykpour was on paternity leave when he heard the news.
According to The Wall Street JournalJason Goldman, an early Twitter executive, claimed that the social network “ went through many terrible times, most of them self-inflicted. This one is by far the worst. He is an agent of chaos imposed from outside and who does not show good faith “.
Twitter employees see blurry
Twitter employees no longer know on which foot to dance. Many feel “undervalued and humiliated” by the billionaire’s attacks on social media. Some have even taken their profiles to private for fear of being harassed by Musk fans, like Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust. Elon Musk had posted a mocking meme of the lawyer retweeted by nearly 56,000 users.
In response to these actions, some people were indignant like Dick Costolo, former general manager of Twitter from 2010 to 2015. He tweeted “ What is happening ? You make an executive of the company you just bought the target of harassment threats to make Elon Musk aware of the proportion that each of his words can have.
what’s going on? You’re making an executive at the company you just bought the target of harassment and threats.
— dick costolo (@dickc) April 27, 2022
Added to this is the questioning of the social network’s moderation decisions. The SpaceX boss intends to make Twitter a bastion of American-style freedom of expression. The arrival of Elon at the head of the company could throw off the work of the hundreds of people who have made sure to make the platform more secure. He also admitted to being in favor of a return of Donald Trump to the platform, whose account had been permanently suspended in January 2021 after the attack on the Capitol.
Some staff fear for the company’s credibility. They reported to Time that Elon Musk’s new stance could challenge users’ trust in Twitter’s anti-abuse policy. ” On numerous occasions, her followers have been the perpetrators of targeted harassment and have used her profile as a call for harassment. These are exactly the behaviors we are trying to limit “, they confided.
Several employees are alerting to the way the media highlight Elon Musk. For Lara Cohen, Head of Partners, the billionaire’s relationship with the press is ” painful to watch “. She denounces ” the way some media covers it and makes headlines about it just because it “said” something (whether legal or factually accurate or possible or not) “. According to her, he enjoys the same media coverage as Trump in 2016.
The way some media outlets cover him, and do headlines just bc he “said”something (whether it’s legal or factually accurate or possible or not) is SO trump 2016 coverage it’s painful to watch.
— Lara Cohen ?? (@Larakate) May 17, 2022
Departures from Twitter executives
Social network executives like Katrina Lane, vice president of Twitter services, Max Schmeiser, head of data science, and Ilya Brown, vice president of product management have abandoned ship.
However, according to Bloomberg, the three former employees left of their own free will. Ilya Brown clarifies in a tweet that the possible arrival of Elon Musk is not the cause of his departure. Musk nonetheless has a reputation for being extremely demanding and has confirmed that he will be with employees. ” Work ethic expectations will be extreme, but far less than what I demand of myself he said in a tweet.
Several employees are looking for a new job. Recruiters reported to wall street journal having had more success than before in poaching at Twitter. However, according to the American magazine Fortuneinterest in getting a job with the social network jumped 263% between April 24 and 30.
To reassure its teams, the San Francisco-based company held no less than 15 meetings to discuss the takeover, the temporary halt in recruitment and other changes that have occurred. Former and current employees said that Twitter had been transformed irreversibly in the past 5 weeks. Still, some employees are excited about Musk’s arrival at the helm of the bluebird. They believe he has the ability to push the social network and its teams to their full potential. At the moment, the redemption is still suspended.