As employees wait for more from Musk, the reality of the acquisition begins to set in. On Thursday afternoon, an internal memo from The edge said Twitter’s code would be frozen until Tuesday, Nov. 1, 10 a.m. Pacific — the same day many employees will see their current batch of stock and cash benefits unconditionally. Then Musk had some Twitter product leaders meet with Tesla employees, presumably to help him get a handle on exactly what he’s buying. (Bloomberg first reported the meeting.) Later in the day, employees donned costumes and took their kids to work for a #trickortweet Halloween party at Twitter’s offices.
Since Musk suddenly announced earlier this month that he actually wanted to buy Twitter again, Twitter’s most visible leader internally has been Jay Sullivan, the general manager of consumer and revenue products. He has held regular listening sessions with employees, but on Thursday, shortly after employees received a calendar invitation to a “quick informal check-in” with him at 7:35 p.m. ET, the meeting was canceled “until further notice” without explanation.
Many Twitter employees have recently noticed the absence of Parag Argawal, their current CEO, who soured Musk after the two initially started talking about Musk joining the Twitter board. “He’s been completely absent for weeks,” a current Twitter employee, who wished to remain anonymous to speak without the company’s permission, said of Argawal. “He ghosted us,” said another. Both Twitter’s Slack and the Twitter employee-only section of Blind, an anonymous message board for tech workers, are full of similar comments about Argawal, according to screenshots seen by The edge.
As befits Musk, his Twitter takeover was a messy saga fueled by his penchant for drama. Anyway, we are still hours away from a conclusion to this saga. It’s the beginning of a new era for Twitter.