Elon Musk calls Twitter engineers, launches poll on Trump ban despite massive resignations

According to multiple media reports, Elon Musk charged any Twitter employee writing software code to report to the 10th floor of the San Francisco headquarters on Friday evening.

The businessman then said he would stay at the company's offices until midnight and leave early on Saturday, and in a second email, "If practical, I would love it if you could fly to SF to appear in person." Engineers should show up on Friday at 2:00 p.m.

Late Friday, Musk asked Twitter users to vote on whether to revive former US President Donald Trump's account. Preliminary results show that 60% of voters chose Yes.

Musk's emails were distributed a day after sources said 1,000 to 1,200 Twitter employees had made the agonizing decision to leave the financially troubled social media company following Musk's Thursday deadline for staff to sign up or leave in a "prolonged escalation." . The New York Times also reported on the emails and staffing choices.

Many employees used the internal company hashtag #lovewhereyouworked in conjunction with their resignation posts on Twitter. I may be #unique, but damn, I'm not #hardcore, said Andrea Horst, a Twitter employee who works in supply chain and capacity management.

According to Reuters, citing two unnamed sources, the business had sealed off its offices and warned people that logo access would be restricted until Monday. It was not immediately clear if the headquarters was reopened.

Musk instructed his team to write a report on their program's "achievements" over the previous 6 months, with "up to 10 screenshots of the most prominent lines of code."

"There are quick technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter technology stack," Musk said in one email.

Last week, Musk said some Tesla employees were "voluntarily" and working "hours" to evaluate Twitter's tech teams.

Key engineering roles are being lost just before the World Cup, when the service normally expects a surge in traffic. The busy event could be a key test for Twitter 2.0, as Musk calls it, and how the company plans to operate with a smaller workforce.

Musk offered to try talking to remote employees via video, and said the only people who needed to be excused were those who couldn't physically make it to the company's headquarters or had a family emergency.

In his first email to Twitter employees this month, Musk said: “We're also changing Twitter's rules to no longer allow remote work unless you have a specific exemption.

Managers will send me exclusion lists for review and approval.

In response to Twitter's policy on remote work, former employee Dmitry Borodenko, who claims he was fired for absenteeism, launched a proposed class-action lawsuit. Borodaenko, who is vulnerable to Covid-19 due to a medical condition, claims in the lawsuit that both the requirement for long, demanding hours and the remote work policy violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Musk's first three weeks as Twitter owner have been marked by volatility and rapid change. Twitter's previous CEO and other senior executives were abruptly fired, and he laid off half of his staff earlier this month.

Using the Latin proverb "Vox Populi, Vox Dei," which roughly translates to "the voice of the people is the voice of God," Musk announced the results of his poll on whether Trump should be reinstated. Polling was open 24 hours a day.

Trump's Twitter account was suspended in May in the wake of last year's attack on the US Capitol. Musk promised to reverse the cap in May.

Musk said Twitter has reinstated other banned or suspended accounts, including Babylon Bee and comedian Kathy Griffin, which were deleted after using Musk's Twitter name. Trump's account could also be revived, according to Musk.

Musk decided to survey Twitter users about who should use the network as part of a major company reorganization that included massive layoffs.

Yoel Roth, a former head of trust and security hired to assuage advertisers' concerns about the platform, said in an op-ed in the New York Times that he decided to resign last week because it became clear that Musk would make all the decisions. his own If Twitter's rules were set by one person's unilateral decree, Roth claims, "Twitter doesn't need a trust and safety function dedicated to its policy development."

Musk wrote on Twitter late Thursday that he wasn't worried about resignations because "the best people stay."

Which way will Twitter go next? Roth wrote. Some of the decisions the campaign will make in the coming weeks and months will be significant and effective immediately, such as definitively reinstating Donald Trump's account on the service. But to fully understand how Twitter is moving forward, I suggest looking at the business and Elon Musk's decision-making processes.