Twitter temporarily 'closes offices' as staff exodus continues after Elon Musk's takeover

Twitter has reportedly told employees the company's office buildings will be temporarily closed as staff continue to leave the social media firm after Elon Musk's takeover.

Hundreds of Twitter employees are said to be leaving the beleaguered social media company after Musk reportedly told staff to either sign up for "long hours at high intensity," or leave.

The managing editor of the tech site Platformer, Zoe Schiffer, tweeted staff were not told why the offices had been temporarily closed. The BBC reports the offices will reopen on Monday November 21.

"We're hearing this is because Elon Musk and his team are terrified employees are going to sabotage the company. Also, they're still trying to figure out which Twitter workers they need to cut access for," Ms Schiffer said in a follow up tweet.

She added the lead web engineer and many of the employees "who maintained critical infrastructure" have left the company.

Since taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Musk has fired half of the company's full-time staff of 7,500 and numerous contractors responsible for content moderation.

He fired top executives on his first day as Twitter's owner, while others left voluntarily in the ensuing days.

Earlier this week, Musk, who also heads Tesla and SpaceX, began firing a small group of engineers who took issue with him publicly or in the company's internal Slack messaging system.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss has continued to tweet throughout the ongoing turmoil, often mocking the concerns raised about the company by posting memes and jokes about the situation.

On Thursday, he said he was not worried about resignations as "the best people are staying."

He tweeted on Friday morning: "Record numbers of users are logging in to see if Twitter is dead, ironically making it more alive than ever!"

One former Tesla worker has spoken out about what Musk was like to work under.

Dezzimond Vaughn worked at the Tesla factory in California until 2017.

He alleges he was sacked after he attempted to unionise workers, leading to a "changed" relationship with the company. Speaking about Musk's potential attitude towards his new staff, Vaughn told ITV News: "He doesn't care [about his Twitter employees].

"The reason I say he doesn't care is because he doesn't have a relationship with those people.

"Even when Tesla was small he never had that one on one relationship.

"He never came down to the floor and I understand he's a businessman, but if you want your company ran a certain way the management has to come from you.

"As long as his cars got taken care of he didn't care about his employees."Musk has vowed to ease restrictions on what users can say on the platform, prompting criticism for potentially opening the gates at Twitter to hate and other harmful speech.

But the billionaire has tried to reassure advertisers, which drive most of the social platform’s revenue, that any rule changes will not damage their brands by associating them with harmful content.

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