Elon Musk’s Twitter ultimatum to staff: Be ‘extremely hardcore’ or leave

It’s decision day for the Twitter staff that remain after the big job losses at the social media giant. In a bid to marshal Twitter’s remaining workforce, Elon Musk has given them until 5pm EST today to be part of the new Twitter, or leave. 

Musk emailed the ultimatum to his remaining staff, demanding a commitment to “be extremely hardcore” and display “exceptional performance”, or hand in their resignation by 5pm EST (10pm GMT). The subject line was, “A Fork in the Road”. 

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” Musk wrote in an email seen by The Guardian and the Washington Post. A CNN reporter later posted the email on Twitter.   

Also: Elon Musk promises not to make Twitter a ‘free-for-all hellscape’

Musk’s message was that Twitter is becoming an engineer-driven operation, so those who code will be more powerful.

Musk’s email said design and product management would still be important at Twitter but that “those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway.”

“At its heart, Twitter is a software and servers company, so I think this makes sense.” 

Anyone who doesn’t respond by the deadline will receive three months severance pay, said Musk.    

Musk on Tuesday tweeted that he’d relaunch the $8 per month Blue Verified service on 29 November to “make sure it is rock solid”. Twitter Blue was paused after numerous brands and high-profile individuals were impersonated via it. 

Musk also welcomed back two employees he’d fired after taking the helm on October 27. “Important to admit when I’m wrong & firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes,” he tweeted.