‘Drama to culture shock’: Twitter employees prep for ‘would-be-boss’

"To go or to stay” — that is the question Twitter staffers are addressing ‘once again’ as the microblogging has received a proposal from Elon Musk that he would abide by his April agreement to buy the company for $54.20 per share if Twitter dropped its litigation against him.

While several employees said they were ready to see the rerun of the “drama”, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Parmy Olson believes Twitter will be in for a culture shock if the deal goes through.

In her latest column, she said Musk would push Twitter to chase seemingly impossible goals under ridiculous deadlines. Employees who have made jokes about the idea of working for Musk in internal Slack channels will soon be reeling from what seem like insane demands, according to her.

She said SpaceX's boss has a history of demanding the impossible of his companies while creating a reality distortion field for the rest of the world about what they will achieve.

To explain what things could look like, she cited an example saying Musk has said he wants to authenticate all real humans on the site. This could mean he'll demand that engineers shrink the total number of spambots from around 5 percent to under 1 percent.

"While other CEOs might give them a few years to do the job, there’s a good chance he will tell them to do it within the next six to 12 months," she wrote.

Not just the working culture, if there will be any changes in the leadership remains to be seen. , Twitter employees have been tweeting about their confusion and perceived futility about planning for the future when Musk may call for “seismic shifts” in how the company works.

In the past, the Tesla CEO has publicly criticised some of Twitter’s executives. Also, text messages unveiled last week as part of the ongoing lawsuit indicate that Musk is unlikely to keep Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in charge, reports suggest. Musk then vowed to take Twitter private.

Meanwhile, JP Doherty, an engineering manager at Twitter tweeted, "All of the frazzled nerves, all of the uncertainty, all of the worrying, all of the back and forth and back and forth, people I care about struggling and anxious…And we just come right back to where it started, maybe. Unbelievable."

When the news broke that Musk is reviving his Twitter deal, most employees of the social network were sitting through an hourslong 2023 strategy presentation. The presenters paused when everyone’s phone beeped with the development but didn’t address it during the meeting.

Following the development, one of the employees said that the staff employees generally have a low opinion of Musk. On Blind, an app where employees discuss their workplaces under pseudonyms, a poll asked, “what will you miss the most post-privatized Twitter?”, The Verge reported.

Another Twitter employee, senior financial analyst Parker Lyons, tweeted a meme complaining that the company's 2023 plans were now "worthless." He has been posting a series of memes since the announcement. He even posted a small clip mocking getting "quiet fired."

Meanwhile, on the office premises, one worker told Bloomberg that the cafeteria sound system in Twitter’s New York office was playing the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash.