[Real Beat] Five Things Musk Removed from Twitter That 'Go Against the Trend'

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] #RIPTwitter (Rest in peace, Twitter.)

Twitter, the social networking service (SNS) acquired by CEO Elon Musk, is staggering. The sweeping reforms initiated less than a month after the acquisition have overturned the company known as Twitter. Recently, CEO Musk declared, "If you don't like intense, long working hours, quit," going against the global trend of workplace innovation. In response to his sudden and coercive actions, employees have been announcing their departures one after another. Since COVID-19, values such as 'work-life balance (WLB),' respect, and participation have become important in the workplace. However, CEO Musk has systematically eliminated five key values that Twitter once embodied: ▲free lunch ▲respect during mass layoffs ▲remote work ▲life with holidays and evenings ▲opportunities to voice opinions.

① Eliminating Silicon Valley’s Symbol: 'Free Lunch'

'Free lunch' is a symbol of Silicon Valley corporate welfare. In the late 2000s, tech companies seeking to attract top talent first introduced it, and it spread to other industries. Recently, in the U.S., this welfare was also used as an incentive to bring remote workers back to the office amid soaring inflation. On the 14th (local time), CEO Musk tweeted, "Twitter spends $13 million annually on meal services at its San Francisco headquarters. The office attendance rate peaked at 25% and averages below 10%," announcing plans to eliminate it. This was a declaration to reduce welfare benefits.

CEO Musk, who embarked on massive cost-cutting, emphasized that Twitter was losing over $4 million daily due to free meals. However, Tracy Hawkins, former Vice President in charge of real estate and workplace innovation at Twitter who resigned, rebutted his calculation as "a lie." She stated that breakfast and lunch cost about $20?25 per person per day, and office attendance ranged from 20% to 50%. Hawkins explained that the free meals provided by the company allowed employees to work even during lunch breaks.

② Half the Employees Were Laid Off with One Email

Earlier this month, CEO Musk laid off about 3,700 employees, roughly half of Twitter’s workforce. Bloomberg reported on the 16th that "Twitter’s layoffs are a perfect example of how not to lay off people." The worst part was sending layoff notices via a single email or blocking access to internal messaging channels before official notification.

Being laid off is never pleasant, regardless of the method. But if layoffs are necessary, respecting employees during the notification process is crucial. Foreign media often compared Twitter’s mass layoffs with Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, which laid off 11,000 employees around the same time. Bloomberg highlighted that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for his misjudgment and conducted large-scale restructuring with empathy for the affected employees.

Twitter employees are entering the New York office in the United States on the 9th.
[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Recently, many U.S. tech companies have conducted mass layoffs. Experts point out that the way layoff notices are delivered affects not only departing employees but also those remaining. A 2018 Harvard Business Review (HBR) report found that reducing workforce by 1% through layoffs increases voluntary turnover by 31% the following year. This shows the significant negative impact layoffs have on existing organizations, emphasizing the need to notify employees respectfully. CEO Musk’s approach, however, is far from this ideal.

③ "If You Don’t Come to the Office, Quit!"

Remote work, the most common working style during the COVID-19 pandemic, has disappeared at Twitter. According to CNBC and others, CEO Musk demanded employees work 80 hours per week, with at least 40 hours in the office. He emphasized, "My philosophy is that people communicate better and are more productive when they talk face-to-face." In May, he also eliminated remote work at Tesla, the U.S. electric vehicle company, saying, "You’ve probably seen me working alongside factory workers. If I hadn’t, Tesla would have gone bankrupt long ago." The same principle was applied to the factory floor and the IT office.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

Conflicts between management and employees over returning to the office have been reported multiple times on Jinbit. Major tech companies, including Apple, pushed for office returns but saw key talent leave. Nick Bloom, a Stanford professor who has researched remote work post-pandemic, criticized Musk’s decision to end remote work, saying it "will increase employee dissatisfaction amid mass layoffs and reduce productivity," and that "diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) will be negatively affected, and office-related costs will rise."

④ Losing Life with Holidays and Evenings

Remote work is not the only thing that disappeared at Twitter. CEO Musk also took away employees’ holidays and evenings. During the pandemic, Twitter had designated no-meeting days each week and made the first day of every month a company-wide holiday to prevent burnout. Musk eliminated these company-wide holidays.

He also said, "To build a revolutionary Twitter 2.0 and succeed in fierce competition, we must be extremely hardcore. This means working intensely and long hours," adding that those who don’t want this should quit. This was essentially a declaration that employees must be prepared for overtime and holiday work. A Twitter insider told Business Insider, "CEO Musk literally demands 24/7 work year-round."

Since COVID-19, the number of workers seeking work-life balance has surged. The popular term this year, 'quiet quitting,' arose as a backlash against the 'hustle culture' of pouring all time and effort into work to achieve goals. CEO Musk can be seen as a representative of hustle culture. Given the shift in values important to workers, it is questionable how many employees will willingly accept Musk’s intense work demands.

⑤ Speak Up and You’re 'Purged'

Finally, CEO Musk appears to have eliminated the culture of voicing opinions, a hallmark of Silicon Valley tech companies. Foreign media reported that about ten employees who criticized Musk on Twitter or corporate messengers were laid off en masse. Notably, engineer Eric Fronhofer, who pointed out that "CEO Musk misunderstands the technical aspects of the Twitter app," was fired five hours after posting a tweet. Bloomberg described this as a 'purge,' reporting that the company is intensifying such purges.

Twitter is an SNS that allows users to communicate freely anytime and anywhere. CEO Musk has repeatedly declared himself a believer in 'freedom of expression.' According to Bloomberg and others, before Musk’s acquisition, Twitter had a culture of sharing opinions, concerns, and criticisms internally via Slack channels and emails. While public criticism of management was rare, conversations took place when necessary. However, since Musk took over, these have disappeared, leading to communication breakdowns. The irony is palpable.

Following Musk’s so-called 'final ultimatum,' Twitter has seen an exodus and a great resignation of employees. As the situation worsened to the point of threatening company operations, Musk reportedly stepped back to retain key personnel who wanted to quit. On the 17th, he partially reversed his stance on remote work, allowing it with managerial approval. Foreign media have expressed concerns that Twitter’s service could experience outages.

Times change, and so do workplace value priorities. Since COVID-19, workers’ views on workplaces and work styles have shifted significantly. If companies ignore these changes and trends, people?i.e., talent?will leave. Twitter is no exception. Will this crisis bring belated changes to CEO Musk’s values that run counter to trends? How will the remaining employees feel about coming to work at a Twitter dominated by anxiety? It will be interesting to see what kind of Twitter CEO Musk and the remaining staff will build.

Editor's Note[Jinbit] is short for ‘Jeong Hyunjin’s Business Trend’ and ‘Real Business Trend.’ It is a segment showcasing trends in ‘work’ such as organizational culture and HR systems after the pandemic. Based on analyses from foreign media and major overseas institutions that have not received much attention, we aim to deliver fresh and differentiated information and perspectives.