San Francisco: Elon Musk has announced to Twitter staff that they must commit to working “long hours at high intensity” or else leave the company, as per media reports.
In an email to the staff, the social media firm’s new owner said workers should agree to the pledge if they wanted to stay, the Washington Post reported.
Those who do not sign up by Thursday will be given three months’ severance pay, Musk said.
His email to staff, also seen by The Guardian, Musk said that Twitter “will need to be extremely hardcore” in order to succeed.
“This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” he said.
Workers were told that they needed to click on a link by 5 pm on Thursday, if they want to be “part of the new Twitter”.
He added: “Whatever decision you make, thank you for your efforts to make Twitter successful.”
This comes after the entrepreneur told Twitter staff last week that remote working would end and “difficult times” lay ahead, according to reports.
In an email to staff, the owner of the social media firm said workers would be expected in the office for at least 40 hours a week.
Musk added that there was “no way to sugar coat the message” that the slowing global economy was going to hit Twitter’s advertising revenues.
The world’s richest man has already announced half of Twitter’s staff are being let go, after he bought the company in a $44 billion deal.
Musk said he had “no choice” over the cuts as the company was losing $4 million a day. He has blamed “activist groups pressuring advertisers” for a “massive drop in revenue”.
A host of top Twitter executives have also stepped down following his purchase of the firm.
Musk himself has been sleeping at Twitter in recent weeks, even while leading electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.
He described his work habits in a US court on Wednesday, where he appeared to defend the eye-popping $56 billion pay package he received from electric carmaker Tesla in 2018, the BBC reported.
“I pretty much work all the time, with rare exceptions.” he said.
In response to questioning, he later added that the “fundamental organisational restructuring” at Twitter would be complete by the end of this week.
As per a senior equity analyst, “Elon Musk is not going to be doing candlelight dinners and playing ping pong in Twitter’s cafeteria and this is a shock to the system.”
