Elon Musk’s Decision to Not Join Twitter Board has Employees Stressed

Twitter staff had been scheduled to have Monday off, for the corporate’s month-to-month “day of rest.” But Elon Musk made it exhausting not to consider work. Musk, the billionaire who disclosed this month he’d develop into the biggest particular person Twitter shareholder, backed away from a plan to affix the corporate’s board over the weekend. Days earlier, Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal had laid the groundwork for a pleasant relationship by inviting Musk to affix the board. The firm was so assured he’d settle for that it listed Musk as a board member on its investor relations web site. Agrawal additionally organized a question-and-answer session with Musk and staff this week.

For some staff, the reversal signalled chaos: Musk was going to maintain tweeting his critiques of Twitter to greater than 80 million followers on the location, with none requirement to behave in one of the best pursuits of the corporate. The Q&A was cancelled.

In his announcement late Sunday, Agrawal framed Musk’s shock resolution pretty much as good for Twitter, however warned of “distractions ahead.” The whiplash is overwhelming, staff stated. The vibe amongst employees at Twitter is “super stressed,” with staff “working together to help each other get through the week,” some stated, asking to not be named discussing inside firm particulars.

In latest days, Musk has tweeted product concepts from eliminating promoting for members of Twitter’s subscription service to turning a part of its San Francisco headquarters right into a homeless shelter. Without a board seat, there are now not restrictions on what number of shares he can purchase, or on his tweeting; one worker expressed concern that Musk was “just getting started, which is unfortunate.” Multiple employees described the scenario as a “sh-t show.”

Some Twitter staffers had blended emotions about attending the ask-me-anything session with Musk anyway. It may need clarified whether or not Musk had plans to be pleasant or hostile together with his stake, nevertheless it may even have raised additional questions on how you can react to his whims.

“Musk’s immediate chilling effect was something that bothered me significantly,” Rumman Chowdhury, a director on Twitter’s AI analysis crew, posted on the social media web site.

Meanwhile, Musk’s followers on Twitter have chimed in to be vital of the product, following his lead. “Twitter has a beautiful culture of hilarious constructive criticism, and I saw that go silent because of his minions attacking employees,” Chowdhury stated.

Musk’s sudden change of coronary heart over the board seat additionally ignited hypothesis about his finish sport. By not becoming a member of the board, Musk, who owns simply greater than 9 p.c of the corporate, is now not topic to a standstill settlement that will have capped his stake at 14.9 p.c.

“This decision by Elon does not bode well for Twitter,” as a result of he may improve his stake whereas posting more and more antagonistic issues in regards to the platform, stated Matt Navarra, a social media guide. “Twitter thought having Trump on the platform was tough. Elon Musk is going to be a corporate nightmare.”

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