Following the earlier-than-expected decision by hundreds of workers to quit the firm, there were concerns about a possible site collapse. There is no longer “a skeleton crew manning the system,” a former Twitter employee told The Washington Post. The worker predicted that it would keep moving backward until it collided with something, at which point it would come to a halt. Musk posted a joke on Twitter showing the Twitter logo on a tombstone.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022 On November 17, the roughly 3,500 surviving Twitter workers had a decision to make: Stay and work for Musk’s demanding new “Twitter 2.0,” which includes a minimum 40-hour workweek and many other demanding changes, or quit with three months’ pay. According to the tech journal Platformer (as well as BBC), at about the same time, the business shut the doors to its San Francisco offices until Nov. 21. In response to a request for comment, Twitter, which no longer seems to have a PR division, did not remark. According to additional workers who wanted anonymity to talk without Musk’s permission, some “critical” teams at Twitter have now either totally or almost completely quit. This comprises the front ended and traffic teams at Twitter, who direct engineering requests to the appropriate backend services. There is also no longer a team responsible for maintaining the fundamental system libraries used by any developer employed by Twitter. Even before Musk assumed control of Twitter, the firm’s relationship with him was already a turbulent one. Musk is also the CEO of manufacturer Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX. After signing an agreement in April to purchase the business, he later made an effort to back out of the arrangement, which prompted Twitter to sue him. Following many months of pre-trial conflict, Musk completed the transaction only in time to beat the deadline set by the court.