[Thread] Sources: ~20 Twitter employees who criticized Elon Musk in Twitter's Slack channels were fired overnight via email
NEW: Employees who have criticized Elon Musk in Twitter's Slack channels were fired overnight over email. “We regret to inform you that your employment is terminated immediately,” they're being told over email. “Your recent behavior has violated company policy.”
Context & Ripple Effects
Twitter’s leadership change had already begun with the removal of top executives, followed by the firing of engineers who criticized Musk publicly. The reported Slack-channel dismissals extend that disciplinary pattern from public posts to internal discussion.
The later wave of employee farewells after Musk’s “hardcore” ultimatum makes the reported terminations consequential beyond the individuals involved: they occurred during a broader loss of staff.
First-order effects
- The reported email terminations immediately remove roughly 20 Twitter employees and make internal criticism of Musk a potential employment risk for remaining staff.
- Twitter’s managers inherit a workforce in which conduct policy is being applied to criticism of the owner, alongside the earlier firing of engineers who criticized him publicly.
Second-order effects
- The dismissals and subsequent resignations compound Twitter’s personnel losses, putting more operational knowledge outside the company during the ownership transition.
- Employees deciding whether to remain at Twitter face a clearer trade-off between complying with Musk’s expectations and voicing internal objections.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Twitter’s governance shifts from executive-led corporate oversight toward a more owner-directed organization in which dissent is managed through employment decisions.
- That model can reshape retention and recruiting by making alignment with the owner’s priorities a more central condition of employment.
The trend: Twitter’s early post-acquisition transition shows how a new owner can rapidly centralize control by pairing leadership turnover with stricter consequences for employee dissent.