Inside the Twitter meltdown


A truly chaotic 24 hours at the company, and the mounting fears over what it means for the service that still serves as the heartbeat of the global news cycle.

Just after lunchtime on the West Coast, Musk held an unannounced all-hands meeting with staff — his first as CEO. Musk had given employees just one hour’s notice; he arrived 15 minutes late.

Over the next hour Musk shared more bad news with the company. Depending on the length and severity of the recession, he said, the company could lose several billion dollars next year. He would not speculate how much runway Twitter had left. “Bankruptcy isn’t out of the question,” he said, as we were also first to report.

Around that time, someone put a poll into Twitter’s Slack channel: “Is it too early for vodka?” the poll asked. (It was a little after 1PM PT.)

Musk also took a pugnacious tone with employees who questioned the wisdom of a forced return to the office. Speaking of the value of in-person work, he said: “If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted.”

Those last two words would loom larger in the hours afterward, when Roth tendered his resignations. So did John Debay, director of software engineering. That left massive holes in the product, trust and safety, and sales organizations, further increasing the difficulty for Musk as he attempts to retain and recruit advertisers.

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