Is Twitter dying? Twitter locks staff out of offices until next week

Twitter has continued to bleed staff after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay, as doors at company offices were shut to workers until Monday.

Twitter told employees the company's office buildings would be temporarily closed, effective immediately but would reopen after the weekend.

The extraordinary move sparked a warning the chances of Twitter being knocked offline have “dramatically increased” in the past 24 hours.

Industry expert Matt Navarra said it was unlikely the site would go down in the next few days. But he warned it was under increased strain as key engineers who are charged with maintaining the site leave just as a major event for Twitter – the Fifa World Cup – begins this weekend.

Twitter continued to bleed engineers and other workers on Thursday, after new owner Elon Musk gave them a choice to pledge to “hardcore” work or resign with severance pay.

It comes amid reports large numbers of staff were quitting after Mr Musk called on them to sign up for "long hours at high intensity" or leave. Many took to Twitter to say they were signing off after Mr Musk’s deadline to make the pledge.

A number of employees took to a private forum outside of the company’s messaging board to discuss their planned departure, asking questions about how it might jeopardise their US visas or if they would get the promised severance pay.

While it is not clear how many of Twitter’s already-decimated staff took Mr Musk up on his offer, the newest round of departures means the platform is continuing to lose workers just as it is gearing up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

“To all the Tweeps who decided to make today your last day – thanks for being incredible teammates through the ups and downs, I can’t wait to see what you do next,” tweeted one employee, Esther Crawford, who is remaining at the company and has been working on the overhaul of the platform’s verification system.

Since taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Mr Musk has axed half of the company’s full-time staff of 7,500, along with an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts.

He fired top executives on his first day as Twitter’s owner, while others left voluntarily in ensuing days. Earlier this week, the billionaire began firing a small group of engineers who took issue with him publicly or in the company’s internal Slack messaging system.

Then overnight on Wednesday, Mr Musk sent an email to the remaining staff at Twitter, saying the platform is a software and servers’ company at its heart and he asked employees to decide by Thursday evening if they want to remain a part of the business.

He wrote that employees “will need to be extremely hardcore” to build “a breakthrough Twitter 2.0” and that long hours at high intensity would be needed for success.

Mr Navarra said: “There’s a code freeze in place and Twitter is kind of running on autopilot at the moment with its IT systems, and that’s a strategic move by Elon Musk to protect the stability of the platform while he figures out the next move. But with the World Cup coming up, that’s going to be real test of the resilience and capacity of Twitter to maintain a platform during a busy period.”

Twitter did not respond to a message seeking comment.