The Elon Musk train is finally rolling through Twitter and leaving a wake of chaos and significant change.
Employees at Twitter have been bracing for Musk's takeover for months, predicting disorder and confusion as the will-he-won't-he saga came to an end officially last week.
Still, the degree to which they have been proven correct seems to have taken some by surprise. One employee called the current work culture "a free for all," with some people desperate to get in on projects dubbed "Elon critical" as others are openly applying for jobs and prepping for interviews.
If you're hazy on some of the pandemonium surrounding Musk's first week at Twitter, we've compiled a full timeline of the events. From the billionaire busting into the company's San Francisco headquarters holding a bathroom sink, to demanding 12-hour workdays and new products to sparring with celebrities, changes to Twitter have just begun.
Day 0 — 'Let that sink in'
Musk made a grand entrance to Twitter headquarters last Wednesday.
Although he had first come into the office quietly last Tuesday, leaving employees to gossip about seeing him in the hallways and bathrooms, the billionaire couldn't resist making his presence known to all. The next day he walked into Twitter's office carrying a bathroom sink. "Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!" Musk quipped on Twitter.
Musk quickly became a source of curiosity for staff. He was swarmed by about 40 people when he tried to order a coffee inside the HQ building, with his toddler, X Æ A-12, at his side. He spoke to employees for about an hour, as Insider reported, fielding questions about expected layoffs. Some employees even posted pictures of Musk on BeReal.
Day 1 — Heads roll
Musk took charge of Twitter late Thursday and there were no more coffee shop chats with the billionaire.
He moved quickly to fire nearly all of Twitter's C-suite, as had been expected, along with Twitter's board of directors. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal were fired immediately. Chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett also got the boot. All are likely to receive large payments for being fired by Musk, as is required by their employment contracts. Though, Musk reportedly attempted to fire the executives "for cause" in a bid to prevent them from getting the benefits of their golden parachutes.
Segal lamented after his ouster that "the past 6 months have pulled on every mental muscle I've developed in 48 years."
Agrawal likely saw the writing on the wall months ago. His relationship with Musk quickly turned confrontational after the billionaire moved in April to join Twitter's board. Agrawal dared challenge Musk in a series of private texts between the two and on Twitter. In return, Musk turned angry and derided Agrawal and even replied to a tweet from Agrawal with the poop emoji.
"The bird is freed," Musk tweeted a few hours after the acquisition closed, amid an outpouring of support from far-right conservatives who have glommed onto Musk's comments about free speech.
Day 2 — 'Comedy is now legal'
On Musk's first day as leader of Twitter, confusion reigned.
Starting work on Friday, Musk's new employees were met with absolute silence from leadership. Speculation flew among workers of what was to come. Twitter staff spent much of the day refreshing their phones and waiting for news as questions about firings and layoffs circulated on the company Slack, as Insider reported. They received nothing. Musk did not even internally recognize that he was now the owner of the company.
With the media watching closely and expecting layoffs, as Musk had as far back as June he intended to trim headcount, Twitter was apparently ripe for a hoax. Two men holding cardboard boxes — one of whom called himself "Rahul Ligma" — appeared outside headquarters, claiming they had just been laid off from Twitter. CNBC reporters on the scene quickly reported the mens' claims. While it was within hours found that both men were merely posing as Twitter workers, it set off arguments inside Twitter about when and how layoffs would occur.
Musk called the hoax "one of the best trolls ever" after tweeting "comedy is now legal on Twitter."
Meanwhile on Friday, instances of hate speech and the use of slurs on Twitter soared, according to a report from The Washington Post. And Musk's transition team were conducting "code reviews," where Twitter engineers showed the code they'd been working on for the last two to three months. They were even asked to "print out" their recent code so Musk could read it, a decision that was quickly reversed.
Day 3 —Free speech starts to look a lot like hate speech
By Saturday, Musk had brought in some of his closest associates to help in his takeover of Twitter's operations, including longtime friend and tech executive David Sacks and his personal attorney attorney Alex Spiro of Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, along with several engineers from Tesla and trusted associates from his other companies The Boring Company and Neuralink, as Insider reported. At least 50 Tesla engineers have since come into Twitter, according to CNBC.
Many Twitter engineers and product employees also worked the weekend, coming to terms with the fact that their performance now was being closely watched by Musk. The day saw many vice presidents working to compile lists of their reports and complete stack ranking, a type of performance review where workers in a group are compared to one another. They were asked to identify low performers to be let go, as Insider reported.
With stack ranking happening so quickly, workers expected layoffs to begin that weekend or Monday.
It was later reported that by this time Twitter had locked out "hundreds" of content-moderation workers after Musk took over. The move cut the number of employees able to address hate speech and misinformation on the platform from hundreds to about 15 and saw such posts explode in frequency.
Twitter's head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, eventually said the company is still enforcing its platform "rules at scale," while acknowledging a smaller team had the tools to do so. He insisted the restrictions were part of an effort to keep rogue workers from changing programming code during the transition to Musk's ownership.
Day 4 — Sleep at the office
A weekend of work and uncertainty reinforced to Twitter's workers that a new culture was in place under Musk.
Engineers spent Saturday and Sunday completing new coding projects in "sprints" as department heads continued with stack ranking and handing off lists of workers to be let go to Musk and his team, as Insider reported. One manager said it was "unlike anything in my 20-year career."
Notes seen by Insider from directors and managers started to appear on Slack on Sunday, urging people to work at a "maniacal" pace and pitch Musk directly on new ideas. They also stressed that anyone on an "Elon critical" project was expected to work "literally 24/7."
Work on projects Musk wanted done quickly began being done in 12-hour shifts around the globe, according to a note seen by Insider. Other outlets reported that 84-hour weeks, or working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, were expected.
Day 5 — Musk gets nostalgic
Still more demands of Twitter employees came from Musk on Monday.
He ordered engineers to get to work on rebooting Vine the short form video app Twitter acquired and shuttered six years ago. With the rise of TikTok, Jack Dorsey has said shutting down Vine was one of his biggest regrets.
"What could we do to make it better than TikTok?" Musk asked on Twitter. He has taken to running polls for new ideas on the platform and frequently posting about what he intends to change.
Later in the day, Musk's scrapping of Twitter's entire 9-person board of directors became formal with a notification filed with the Securities and Exchange commission. Musk is now the sole director of the company. Insider previously reported that Musk had claimed the title of CEO on Slack and in Twitter's company directory.
...and finally
Day 9 — Cut in half
Thousands of Twitter employees woke on Friday morning to emails, notifying them that they had been laid off.
Meanwhile, those left standing at Twitter received a different email, promising more answers in the weeks to come, Insider reported.
"Throughout the last week, Elon has spent time with a number of employees, customers, partners, policymakers and Twitter users," the email read. "He is looking forward to communicating with everyone about his vision for the company soon."
Amid the transition, the company's Slack, as well as social media feeds, were flooded with heartfelt farewell messages from departing "Tweeps."
Musk commented on the layoffs during an interview at the Baron Investment Conference, saying the company was facing "pretty serious revenue challenges and other challenges before the acquisition started."
Otherwise, Musk was loath to comment on the layoffs, choosing instead to take several digs at Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and blame activist pressure for a loss in advertiser revenue at Twitter.
"They're trying to destroy free speech in America," the billionaire tweeted.
