A large portion of Twitter’s financial organisation, including its payroll department, left the company in response to an ultimatum from Elon Musk that has seemingly backfired.
Along with the payroll department resigning, Twitter’s US Tax team and its financial reporting team also resigned, two people familiar with the matter said, matching several internal messages.
Employees are set to get paid again next week, one former worker said. While those payments are likely to have been already approved, the next round of payments will not have been, the person said.
“What happens in another two weeks?” the person asked. “When everyone who can approve something is gone.”
“Now we’ll never see our money,” another former employee said. All the people who spoke with Insider asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters. An email seeking comment from Twitter last night was not returned.
The loss of payroll and other financial department employees happened as part of a mass resignation of Twitter workers who refused to sign up for Musk’s proposed “Twitter 2.0.” The billionaire, who took over Twitter about three weeks ago, said the platform would now be an “extremely hardcore” and engineering forward place to work. He told the entire company to decide by if they wanted to continue working at this version of Twitter. Those who did were to click a link included in the email. Those who did not click the link, which only had a “yes” option, would be considered to have decided to be part of a voluntary layoff and would receive three months of pay as severance, Musk said.
As the deadline passed, less than 50% of Twitter’s employees had signed up for Musk’s Twitter 2.0. Musk, members of his personal transition team and some leaders left at Twitter made personal calls and held meetings with several workers in an effort to get them to stay with the company. While a few did agree, most did not.
Earlier this month, Musk laid off close to 3,500 employees. Combined with Thursday’s resignations, two workers estimated there are likely fewer than 2,000 employees left at the company.
