Keeping the technical lights on at Twitter

Just when you thought the latest version of corporate Twitter couldn’t possibly get any worse, Elon Musk decided to up the stakes. In an email sent to staff on Friday, the billionaire owner asked employees who write software code to report to the 10th floor of Twitter’s office in San Francisco at 2pm that day.

“I would appreciate it if you could fly to SF to be present in person,” the email said.

Perhaps in a nod to the fact that we don’t all live in a world where jumping on a flight with zero notice is possible, Musk magnanimously said that he would conduct these discussions over video call for remote employees – but only for those who physically couldn’t make it to the San Francisco office or had a family emergency.

The reason for the meetings? “There will be short, technical interviews that allow me to better understand the Twitter tech stack.”

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It’s the kind of research you would have thought might have been conducted long, long before now. Making sure the business has the expertise it needs to keep the technical lights on seems fairly important.

But Musk doesn’t seem too interested in this kind of approach to his new toy. In his short tenure as chief executive, he has fired Twitter employees by email while making them engage in a guessing game; rescinded the company’s pledge to allow people to work remotely forever; and issued an ultimatum to staff to commit to working long hours and high intensity, or leave. Advertisers have hit pause, and the ill-thought out launch of Twitter Blue has been postponed until the end of the month.

Staff were once again locked out of offices on Friday as the company lost hundreds of experienced people in a matter of hours – the kind of employees who would normally be responsible for keeping the service stable and operational. With #RIPTwitter and #Twitterdown trending on the platform, the company is in the position of hosting the debate on its own potential demise.

Musk needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat and inspire some confidence, before the Chief Twit has little left to preside over.