Twitter employees expressed disbelief and exhaustion on Friday after billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said he was terminating a deal to buy the social media company in what could be the start of months of legal wrangling.
Musk said Twitter breached multiple provisions of a $44
billion merger agreement struck in
April, including by failing to turn over sufficient data on spam accounts and
letting go of some executives and recruiters. Twitter's chairman said the board
planned to pursue legal action to enforce the deal.
Engineers, marketing leaders and other staff at the company
quickly took to Twitter to publicly post memes, such as of a rollercoaster ride
and a baby screaming into a phone, in apparent commentary on the latest
development in Musk's courtship of Twitter since January. Others joked about
the impossibility of breaking their own personal commitments.
Employees have expressed widespread concern about Musk
taking over Twitter because of his preferences for cutting headcount and other
costs, decreasing content moderation and limiting remote work.
But Musk's now-reneged offer also marks a 36 percent premium
for the company's shares and could mean a big payday for employees and other
shareholders.
After months of constant headlines, a Twitter employee told
Reuters on Friday that they felt only more weary about the road ahead.
"I just don't believe it's actually over," the
employee said on the condition of anonymity.
Amir Shevat, whose Twitter bio says he works on the
company's developer products, posted on the service soon after news of Musk's
termination, "End of season one - what a cliffhanger..."
Jared Manfredi, whose profile says he works on iOS products
at Twitter, wrote, "If only this wasn't the start of a long drawn-out
court battle that will just end up lowering the purchase price and continuing
the circus for another indefinite amount of time."
Reuters could not independently verify the information in
their profiles, and they did not immediately respond to requests for comment
through private messages.
Twitter told employees last month that it was on track to
increase the number of users who see ads by 13 million during the just-ended
second quarter, the highest such goal it has ever set. Twitter has not yet
announced second-quarter results.
Musk, who is the chief executive of automaker Tesla and
rocket company SpaceX, told Twitter staff later in the month on a video
townhall that he wants to grow the company to at least 1 billion users from 229
million. He also told them users should be allowed to post "pretty
outrageous things."
Musk, a prolific user of Twitter, has said in owning a
social media service, he could make it more entertaining and maintain it as an
essential public forum.
His attorney in a regulatory filing on Friday said Twitter
had violated a deal provision to “preserve substantially intact the material
components of its current business organisation" by firing two managers,
laying off a chunk of its talent acquisition team, instituting a hiring freeze,
rescinding job offers. It also cited the resignations of three department
leaders.
Twitter had over 7,500 employees as of the end of 2021. © Reuters
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