‘Hardcore’ Musk decimates Twitter staff benefits, mandates weekly code reviews

Elon Musk with his hands together, in a reverent pose, framed by a circle of Twitter logos
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The latest memos sent to staff by Twitter’s new CEO Elon Musk revealed that many employee benefits will be cut as the billionaire continues to cut costs across the company.

Allowances for child care, home internet, wellness, personal and professional development, and quarterly team activities have all been gutted.

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Musk said the benefits may return when the company starts demonstrating a better financial situation.

The revelations come in the latest round of internal leaks made by employees who remain at the company, as seen by The Verge.

All Twitter staff will also be required to provide the CEO with weekly updates on their work. According to the memos, every Friday staff will be required to send a concise update on what they have been doing throughout the week.

Software engineers and other relevant technical departments will be required to provide examples of code where relevant. Staff in other departments will have to provide written summaries of their respective progress.

At the end of last week, Musk also reportedly required all software engineers to update him personally and provide screenshots of their ten “most salient lines of code”.

The latest overhauls at the platform come after Musk said he would be thrusting an “extremely hardcore” working culture on its remaining staff.

In his short time in charge at the company, the CEO has ordered swathes of layoffs and other policies have prompted remaining staff to resign en masse.

Hundreds of staff walked out on the company last week, rejecting Musk’s ‘Twitter 2.0’. The CEO set a 17 November deadline for staff to agree to his new vision for the company or be fired while receiving three months’ worth of severance pay.

In addition to the mandatory weekly reports and massive personnel cuts - around 50% (around 3,700 total) were fired earlier this month by email - Musk also promised longer working days at a higher intensity.

Next steps for paid verification

Elon Musk confirmed in a Tuesday tweet that one of his first acts as Twitter CEO, implementing $8 paid verification, would be put on hold due to rampant impersonations.

The paid verification feature, called Twitter Blue, was introduced at the start of November and was paused less than a week after its launch.

Numerous accounts impersonated high-profile figures, including Musk, and posted tweets that aimed to damage the genuine individual’s reputation.

Twitter Blue allowed anyone to pay a monthly fee for the platform’s heralded ‘blue tick’ - a symbol applied to an account, previously only available via Twitter’s in-house vetting process.

It meant any account could be ‘verified’ and organisations like news outlets would receive separate ‘official’ badges to demonstrate their legitimacy.

Musk introduced the feature to combat the rampant use of bots and other fake accounts on the platform used to spread misinformation and scams.

Connor Jones
Contributor

Connor Jones has been at the forefront of global cyber security news coverage for the past few years, breaking developments on major stories such as LockBit’s ransomware attack on Royal Mail International, and many others. He has also made sporadic appearances on the ITPro Podcast discussing topics from home desk setups all the way to hacking systems using prosthetic limbs. He has a master’s degree in Magazine Journalism from the University of Sheffield, and has previously written for the likes of Red Bull Esports and UNILAD tech during his career that started in 2015.