Elon Musk Locks the Doors at Twitter

Elon Musk had the doors locked at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco Thursday according to multiple reports.

Musk had set a deadline of 5 p.m. PST for remaining Twitter employees to decide whether to stay or take a three-month severance policy. The building reportedly won't reopen until Monday, when new security badges are likely to be distributed to employees who chose to stay.

However, an unexpectedly large number of Twitter employees apparently opted not to join Musk’s “hardcore” drive to build Twitter 2.0.

Some estimates suggested that as much as 40% of the remaining staff at the company had taken the severance offer. 

Hashtags such as #RipTwitter, #TwitterDown, #RIPTwitter and #TwitterDown shot up trending charts.

Dozens of former Twitter employees took to the social media site to say their farewells and suggest dire times ahead for the company as it is gutted of those who built and maintained the social media company.

One anonymous former employee told the Washington Post that

“I know of six critical systems (like ‘serving tweets’ levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers.” They added that “There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop.”

Musk acquired Twitter late last month after giving up his efforts to get out of the $44 billion deal he agreed to in April. He had cut about 50% of the workforce prior to this week's demand that remaining workers agree to take on longer hours and weekend shifts.

Musk is desperately trying to cut costs at the company as it now carries billions in debt he borrowed to acquire it. Twitter also faces reluctance from advertisers wary of the new owner's mercurial moves.

Some reports suggested that Musk has had to backtrack on a rule eliminating working from home, and has had to enter talks with employees deemed critical to the site to try to convince them to stay. 

Musk is also CEO of Tesla TSLA and SpaceX.