Twitter Temporarily Suspends Badge Access Amid Resignation Chaos

Elon Musk's attempt to make his workforce more "hardcore" seems to have blown up as spectacularly as a failed SpaceX launch. The billionaire made the majority of his fortune at companies like Tesla which have similar working policies to the ones he was trying to implement at Twitter. However, when presented with a choice between accepting longer hours and a more intense workload, where "only exceptional performance" gets a passing grade, a large portion of the staff have chosen the other option, resignation.

Staff was also offered the same severance package as their colleagues who were laid off earlier this month are meant to receive: three months' pay. Instead of seeing the email as a threat, hundreds may have seen it as a lifeline. Hundreds of staff members have allegedly denied Musk's request or simply not responded by the 5 p.m. Eastern Time deadline. 

Combined with the mass layoffs earlier this month – which saw around half of the company's staff exit, several employees being fired for allegedly badmouthing the billionaire, and the axing of thousands of contractors — the company may now be operating on a skeleton crew, or unable to operate at all. Entitled "A Fork in the Road" and intended to get the employee base ready to build Twitter 2.0, Musk's ultimatum may have instead destroyed a company he spent $44 billion on just a few short weeks ago.

According to The Verge, hundreds of employees stated their intentions not to comply with Musk's plans via the company's Slack channel. One employee is alleged to have said "My watch ends with Twitter 1.0. I do not wish to be part of Twitter 2.0." In response to the apparent mass resignation, employees have reportedly had their access to the company's building suspended. Musk is alleged to have pulled a similar move shortly before the mass layoffs began, with both times apparently being an attempt to avoid sabotage from a disgruntled ex-employee. News of the badge suspension arrived via email, and the affected employees reportedly won't have their access back until Monday.

However, Musk and his company may have bigger things to worried about than insults on Slack and a few disgruntled employees. According to reports, the mass resignations have completely gutted some of the company's more vital engineering teams. One engineer spoke to CNBC before handing in their resignation and painted a bleak picture of the company's future saying, "Entire teams representing critical infrastructure are voluntarily departing the company, leaving the company at serious risk of being able to recover." 

NEW: Twitter just alerted employees that effective immediately, all office buildings are temporarily closed and badge access is suspended. No details given as to why.

— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) November 17, 2022

Platformer's Zoë Schiffer claims, the team responsible for revamping Twitter Blue has gone, as well. So if Twitter does survive, Blue's relaunch may be pushed back again. Teams critical to the business' infrastructure, including the team that maintains Twitter's core system libraries have allegedly "completely or near completely" resigned, with many of the departing employees expecting the social media platform to gradually break down over the coming weeks. Even Musk himself seems to be acknowledging the situation. The entrepreneur's latest tweet seems to be a self-reflective joke. "How do you make a small fortune in social media? Start out with a large one."