Sources: Elon Musk asks trusted staff from his other companies, including 50+ from Tesla, two from Boring Company, and one from Neuralink, to help at Twitter

- Tesla CEO Elon Musk, now sole director and CEO of Twitter, is asking employees of the social network to redesign their subscription and verification systems within one week.

CNBC 2022-11-01 Lora Kolodny

Context & Ripple Effects

Musk had signaled direct control by arriving at Twitter’s office as “Chief Twit”, while earlier coverage tied his plans to new ways of monetizing activity on the platform. Pulling personnel from Tesla, Boring Company, and Neuralink turns that control into an operating model rather than a leadership gesture.

The immediate assignment is focused on subscription and verification, two systems that later coverage connects to subscriber-only influence over policy decisions. Twitter staff were also operating amid a lack of official internal communication, making external reinforcements and a one-week product mandate especially consequential.

First-order effects

Twitter gains a cross-company team to accelerate changes to subscriptions and verification, while Tesla supplies more than 50 staff to the effort.
Twitter employees must execute a redesign on Musk’s one-week timetable, concentrating product authority around Musk and his trusted personnel.

Second-order effects

The reliance on outside staff heightens pressure on Twitter’s existing teams to demonstrate which roles are essential; the subsequent recall of some laid-off employees shows the operational cost of moving faster than internal knowledge transfer allows.
Subscription and verification become linked levers for revenue and platform participation, a direction later reflected in Musk’s commitment to restrict some policy voting to Blue subscribers.

Third-order effects

If this operating pattern persists, Twitter’s turnaround becomes a test of whether a founder can pool engineering capacity across separately run companies instead of building stable platform-specific teams.
Verification is shifting from a standalone trust feature toward a paid capability tier, tying governance privileges more closely to subscription status.

The trend: Musk’s Twitter takeover is part of a broader move to use subscription tiers and cross-company talent pools to remake platform economics and governance simultaneously.

Discussion

@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on x
Elon Musk has enlisted more than 50 Tesla employees to help with his Twitter takeover https://www.cnbc.com/... Most of them are Autopilot software engineers. My latest @CNBC
@i_zzzzzz Brooks Otterlake on x
If Twitter gets even 10 percent of these people to pay $20/month, they will be making an extra 7.2 million dollars per year. That's enough to buy four or even five houses in Toronto — and, again, that's every single year https://twitter.com/...
@jarjarfan69 @jarjarfan69 on x
I'm not convinced Elon Musk is wrecking this website unintentionally. I think there's a real possibility this interaction broke him so fundamentally that he decided to destroy it on purpose so no one else could do it to him again. https://twitter.com/...
@nick_craver Nick Craver on x
“I could build Twitter in a weekend” Yeah okay. A lot of people told me they could build Stack Overflow in a weekend too. But then a decade went by and it never happened. So, ya know, good luck with that.
@danslott Dan Slott on x
The origin of my Twitter verification: I got it during the height of the death threats over Spider-Man/Superior Spider-Man. At the same time a number of bad actors created multiple impersonation accounts and were doing awful things in my name. Verification was incredibly helpful.…
@kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz on x
Tesla shareholders must be loving this https://twitter.com/...
@reckless Nilay Patel on x
I agree that this will one day be a business school case study https://twitter.com/...
@binanimals @binanimals on x
They said twitter couldn't kill a child pedestrian. One man dared to dream. https://www.cnbc.com/...
@clarajeffery Clara Jeffery on x
“two Tesla employees told CNBC, workers at the electric automaker are pressured to help with projects at his other companies for no additional pay b/c it's seen as good for their careers, or b/c the work is regarded as helping with a related project.” https://www.cnbc.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
One thing is increasingly certain about Twitter ... it WILL soon run on your car https://twitter.com/...
@paulobrien Paul O'Brien on x
Uh oh. Twitter about to become obsessed with wheelie bins and traffic cones. https://twitter.com/...
@alexbloor @alexbloor on x
Given how there are many long promised features still not delivered in Tesla... if I were a Tesla owner or shareholder, this would not please me. https://twitter.com/...
@violetblue @violetblue on x
Haha, this Autopilot? The same one under federal criminal investigation right now? 🤦‍♀️ https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@manan @manan on x
so the same team that hasn't really shipped a finished product and missed all their delivery dates... is going to fix twitter... https://twitter.com/...
@edbott Ed Bott on x
Mmmm, smells like a class action shareholder suit. https://twitter.com/...
@golikehellmachi @golikehellmachi on x
it won't matter if his fanboy shareholders don't do anything about it, but, like, this is not how this is supposed to work, nor is it a good idea from a practical standpoint. tesla's subsidizing twitter in more ways than one. https://twitter.com/...
@alexdemling Alexander Demling on x
I bet they have nothing else on their plate https://twitter.com/...
@gregbensinger @gregbensinger on x
Would seem unwise to put content moderation on autopilot https://twitter.com/...
@hemal Hemal Shah on x
Very excited for this collab. Can't wait to browse the timeline while driving. https://twitter.com/...
@zck Zak Kukoff on x
Downside: we get self-driving cars years later Upside: twitter will occasionally burst into flames https://twitter.com/...
@aaronm @aaronm on x
[tesla engineer whispering to twitter engineer] so how do you keep it from catching on fire
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on x
Twitter's production code is running on autopilot alright https://twitter.com/...
@pathik @pathik on x
Love all the hustle, but how are Tesla shareholders not pissed off that Elon is using Tesla resources to work on something that doesn't accrue any value back to them? Not just the CEO's focus being split but also its dev team. https://twitter.com/...
@disorderlyswine Scott on x
Good news everyone, the Tesla autopilot team is working on Twitter. Let chaos reign. https://twitter.com/...
@glennf Glenn Fleishman on x
Looking forward to my phone bursting into flame https://twitter.com/...
@vintuitive @vintuitive on x
Twitter employees say managers instructed them to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week to hit Musk's aggressive deadlines and that their jobs are at stake. https://twitter.com/...
@sjvn Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on x
Because we all know how good embedded systems software engineers are at social networking development. I'm sure they'd be at least as good as I would be at say writing opera arias since I am a writer after all. https://twitter.com/...
@rayminehane Ray Minehane on x
The team that makes that feature currently under criminal investigation for killing people is now working at Twitter https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@annemariebridy Annemarie Bridy on x
I wonder how Tesla's shareholders will feel about this diversion of capacity to Elon's private venture. https://twitter.com/...
@modestproposal1 @modestproposal1 on x
😀 https://twitter.com/...
@sirsteven @sirsteven on x
Tesla is publicly-traded. shareholders will be pissed https://twitter.com/...
@disorderlyswine Scott on x
@Techmeme @lorakolodny By Friday Twitter will somehow have phantom braked doing a right hand turn from the left lane and clobbered a bicyclist.
@rynbtmn Ryan Bateman on x
Lotta takes on this, of course, but the one that sticks for me is: the engineering skills for connected car systems software are very different from those of world-size social networks, and someone who does not know this is likely a terribly boss for both. https://twitter.com/...
@kimbenabib Kim Benabib on x
If you start seeing panel gaps around here you'll know why. https://twitter.com/...
@jyarow Jay Yarow on x
Tesla shareholders happy about this? https://twitter.com/...
@kylefrost Kyle Frost on x
“Well, I was working on making an electric car drive itself, but now Elon wants me to figure out how to re-launch Vine.” https://twitter.com/...
@odannyboy @odannyboy on x
This just shows how stupid this whole thing is. The problems they are supposedly trying to solve aren't engineering problems. You'd do better bringing in 50 MBAs and Liberal Arts majors. https://twitter.com/...
@yuhline Yuh-Line Niou on x
I'm laughing at the responses to this tweet being like “oooh twitter is how you're relevant”. To Stephen King. Who is one of the prolific authors of our time...Who...Actually. Gets. Paid. For. His. Words. https://twitter.com/...
@_shamgod @_shamgod on x
Its certainly a status symbol, idk why ppl pretend otherwise. People dont get their verification checks revoked for engaging in disinformation campaigns, and you are given better privileges and control of your experience on the app once you are verified. https://twitter.com/...
@chriskeall Chris Keall on x
Not sure I'd be thrilled at this distraction if I was a Telsa owner or shareholder (or staffer). Huge, open-ended distraction https://twitter.com/...
@karissabe Karissa Bell on x
What? You mean self-driving car software isn't directly applicable to a social network? https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@yevp @yevp on x
It's so weird to me that this is happening. Bringing in Tesla engineers to overlook Twitter is more of a merger, less of a “purchase” - but that's not how this was teed up. $TSLA shareholders should be annoyed, no? Aren't there controls in place for this type of thing? https://tw…
@patterballs Steve Patterson on x
I'm with Stephen King on this one. Between the 2 of us we have 6.823 million followers on here! https://twitter.com/...
@broderick Ryan Broderick on x
I love watching rich guys destroy their own website because they're obsessed with the idea of internet landlordism https://www.garbageday.email/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@baxiabhishek Abhishek Baxi on x
Stellar work with embedded systems. Now, do this social networking shiz. Great plan. https://twitter.com/...
@buildtheikedike @buildtheikedike on x
That seems in conflict with his fiduciary responsibility to shareholders of Tesla if they aren't being compensated by Twitter. If so, that's a pretty large expenditure. Twitter will be feeding revenue into Tesla for these long-term “consulting fees” I would imagine. https://twitt…
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on x
The real question this story raises... Should your side hustle be working for your boss on his side hustle? ;) https://www.cnbc.com/...
@yelvington Steve Yelvington on x
Soon Twitter will be able to rearend a bus and burst into flames without human intervention. https://twitter.com/...
@annierpalmer Annie Palmer on x
“According to internal records viewed by CNBC, employees from Musk's other companies are now authorized to work at Twitter, including more than 50 from Tesla, two from the Boring Company, and one from Neuralink.” More from @lorakolodny: https://www.cnbc.com/...

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