Elon Musk has reportedly emailed his Twitter employees to warn of “difficult times ahead” and inform them that they will no longer be permitted to work remotely — unless he personally approves it.
Musk sent an email to his staff for the first time late Wednesday, saying there was “no way to sugarcoat the message” about the economy and its impact on Twitter, which depends on ads, according to Bloomberg, which reviewed the email.
The employees will be expected to be in the office for at least 40 hours a week, added the billionaire, who took over the platform in a $44 billion deal on Oct. 27.
“The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed,” Musk wrote his employees, Bloomberg said.
In another email, the world’s richest man added that “over the next few days, the absolute top priority is finding and suspending any verified bots/trolls/spam.”
Musk, who also is the CEO of Tesla, told workers at the electric car maker in June that working remotely was no longer acceptable.
News about the end of working from home comes days after he announced that roughly half of Twitter’s staffers were being let go.
Musk also is charging $8 a month for the Twitter Blue subscription and its attached user verification.
The new boss said in the email that he wants to see subscriptions account for half of the platform’s revenue, according to the news outlet.
Elon Musk officially rolls out $8-a-month Twitter Blue subscription for verification.
On Wednesday, Musk sought to reassure big companies that advertise on Twitter that his chaotic takeover won’t harm their brands — acknowledging that some “dumb things” might happen on his way to creating what he says will be a better, safer user experience.
The latest erratic move on the minds of major advertisers was his decision to abolish a new “official” label on high-profile accounts just hours after introducing it.
Twitter began adding gray labels to prominent accounts, such as Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple, to indicate that they are authentic. A few hours later, the labels started disappearing.
“Apart from being an aesthetic nightmare when looking at the Twitter feed, it was simply another way of creating a two-class system,” Musk told advertisers in an hour-long conversation broadcast live on Twitter.
“It wasn’t addressing the core problem,” he added.
Major brands including General Motors, United Airlines and General Mills have temporarily stopped buying ads on Twitter, as they watch whether Musk’s plans to loosen its guardrails against hate speech will lead to a spike in online toxicity.
Musk said he’s planning a “content moderation council” representing diverse viewpoints that will address inappropriate content and reassure advertisers, but it would take “a few months” to put together.
He added that it will be advisory and “not a command council.”
