Twitter employees given Thursday deadline to decide if they want to stay
SAN FRANCISCO -- Elon Musk has given Twitter employees who survived the massive layoffs a Thursday deadline to decide if they want to stay, committing to "long hours at high intensity".
Musk wrote that employees "will need to be extremely hardcore" to build "a breakthrough Twitter 2.0" and that long hours at high intensity will be needed for success.
Musk said Twitter will be much more engineering-driven, with employees who write "great code" comprising the majority of the team.
The billionaire, who completed the $44 billion takeover of the San Francisco company in late October, has already fired much of its full-time workforce by email on Nov. 4 and is moving to eliminate an untold number of contract jobs.
Musk asked workers to click yes on a link provided in the email if they want to be part of the "new Twitter."
He said that employees had until 5 p.m. Eastern on Thursday to reply to the link. Employees who don't reply by that time will receive three months of severance, according to the email.
"Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful," Musk wrote.
He took over Twitter on Oct. 28, announcing sweeping changes planned for the social media platform.
Musk took the witness stand Wednesday in a Delaware court to defend himself in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by Tesla's board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion.
While testifying, Musk said "I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time," according to multiple media reports.