Friday has already become something of a “moment of truth” for current Twitter employees, as it marks the second time since Elon Musk's acquisition of the company at the end of October that they have made redundancies. This time, employees who wanted to stay were promised the prospect of an extremely high workload, and those who refused them were able to leave the company and receive their due severance pay.

In his written address to the staff of Twitter on Wednesday, Elon Musk outlined the following perspective: according to him, in order to create a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, the team will have to work and act extremely actively and toughly. The recipients of the letters had to agree to their participation in the implementation of such a plan until 5 p.m. Thursday, but if they ignored this offer or refused, they could count on dismissal with the receipt of due payments for three months in advance.

By Friday morning, there were at least a few dozen known cases of employees being fired from Twitter, although it was not possible to confirm this number through official channels. Some teams left Twitter in full force, other employees who left the company called themselves "soft engineers" in opposition to Musk's demand to be "hard" to save jobs.

Like last time, Twitter management ordered the company's offices to close on Friday, depriving all employees of access to them, as it is necessary to prevent those who have actually been fired from gaining access to proprietary information and infrastructure. The media called Elon Musk's new appeal to Twitter employees an "ultimatum". Offices will be open from Monday, and all employees of the company have been advised to refrain from talking to the press and outsiders about what is happening on Twitter.

Elon Musk even tried to persuade key specialists who decided to leave the company to stay during personal meetings with the team. He also relaxed his telecommuting policy, telling those who wish to take advantage of such a scheme that they only need to convince their line manager to confirm the exceptional contribution of the employee to the common cause. At the same time, you still have to appear in the office once a month. Musk asked the leaders not to abuse their right to transfer selected employees to “remote work”, threatening them with dismissal. Some of the previously reduced specialists managed to return to the company. For example, Ella Irwin, who left Twitter earlier, will manage the staff in the unit responsible for security and trust.

According to CNBC, in an appeal to Twitter's lower-level executives, Elon Musk demanded that they meet with the team at least once a week. At the same time, the business owner did not specify what are the criteria for "exclusivity" in relation to the selection of those professionals who will be allowed to work remotely. Only as a last resort, staff are allowed to meet with line managers only once a month. Musk also threatened to crack down on abuse among managers if they unreasonably single out certain employees on the basis of contribution to work, whether they work in the office or at home.