“Journalists” Melt Down As Twitter Survives Mass Wokester Walkouts, Musk Brings Back the Babylon Bee
“And … we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol,” Musk tweeted late Thursday.
As predicted, Elon Musk officially taking over Twitter last month has brought forth a neverending stream of inject into my veins-style moves by the billionaire investor, including his (now-delayed) rollout of the $8/month verified blue check subscription plan, mandating employees actually show up for work, canning tantrum-throwing longtimers who openly declared mutiny, and the email ultimatum he issued earlier this week to be prepared for “working long hours at high intensity” because of his desire to make the company “extremely hardcore.”
If you don’t like it, you can leave the company, the email said in so many words, according to a Washington Post report:
Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to Twitter employees Wednesday morning: Commit to a new “hardcore” Twitter or leave the company with severance pay.
Twitter is shifting to an engineer-driven operation — one that “will need to be extremely hardcore” going forward, according to the midnight email, which was obtained by The Washington Post. Employees were asked to click an icon and respond by Thursday if they wanted to stay.
“This will mean working long hours at high intensity,” he said. “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”
As a result, mass resignations and walkouts happened, leaving the Very Online Left and their allies in the mainstream media predicting that Twitter would collapse between that and the layoffs, with some of the prognosticators posting where they could be found in the aftermath:
just absolute buffoonery last night. pic.twitter.com/znF5FQFsjI
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) November 18, 2022
Fake news has a sad pic.twitter.com/Ri1vy2i8yu
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) November 18, 2022
CBS News and its owned and operated stations are “pausing” activity on Twitter; blaming “uncertainty” on the platform. pic.twitter.com/Pv1gEQjQJH
— Jim Lokay (@LokayFOX5) November 19, 2022
Death is in the air on Twitter. https://t.co/ABljA9Lk7A
— CNN (@CNN) November 18, 2022
Except it didn’t collapse:
And … we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Further, many noted that it was impressive that Twitter could still be functioning as well as it was considering how many employees had either left or had been laid off:
Twitter loses 90% of their employees and still functioning
Let’s do the government next#TwitterDown #Twittershutdown
— thedailyflo (@thedailyflo1) November 18, 2022
Capcom content creator Oliver Campbell posted a interesting thread explaining “what Elon Musk is likely doing” with the demands he made of Twitter employees this week:
Alright, I'm going to explain what Elon Musk is likely doing over there at Twitter. This is not a discussion on whether it's RIGHT OR WRONG; just what's happening.
If I'm wrong, I'm sure he'll pop up and say so.
What Elon is engaged in is something called "Whaling and Culling."
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
By pushing for such an extremely tight deadline, Elon got to see who is actually doing work and who is resting on their laurels. Furthermore, it proved who could actually perform under extreme pressure.
You know, the whole "get this done or you're fired" level of pressure.
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
Second is the "Culling." When you've got 90% of the people not performing, they're actually negatively impacting the 10% who ARE performing above and beyond. And that's why the layoffs happened. Paraphrased, 'shit is gonna change around here, get on board or get out'
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
So now you've chopped your workforce down to people who actually perform, but they're not enough to run everything.
This is why after all those people are let go, there's going to be a surprise hiring of a new bunch of people. Why?
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
So, when you continually slice away the bad portions of something, all that you're left with is 1 of 2 potential outcomes:
1) Nothing usable. It was rotten at the core.
2) Some substantially good bits you can salvage and build on.Elon is gambling on 2.
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
What I'm saying is, take a look at the reactions: The people that are staying at twitter are hunkering down and working. The people he let go are the ones calling doom and gloom. And they're not wrong. The way "things were done" is OVER at Twitter.
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
And like I said at the START OF THIS POST. I didn't say this is RIGHT OR WRONG. Just what is likely happening.
But if you never thought about it before, now you have something to think about.
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) November 18, 2022
Musk seemingly confirmed some of Campbell’s observations here:
The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
To make matters worse for the doomers and gloomers on the left, Musk officially reinstated the Babylon Bee’s Twitter account:
"After almost eight months of the outlet being suspended on Twitter, having never given into deleting the offending tweets, The Babylon Bee suddenly reappeared on Twitter Friday."https://t.co/j3wNrMBlCl pic.twitter.com/Nkm9nrDWs9
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) November 18, 2022
We're back. Let that sink in.
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) November 18, 2022
Musk, who is now on the radars of some powerful Democrats including President Biden and Sen. Ed Markey, also posted a poll asking users to vote on whether former President Donald Trump should be allowed back on the platform. As of this writing, it’s gotten close to 11 million votes:
Reinstate former President Trump
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
There’s no telling what Musk might do next, but it’s probably a good idea to go ahead and stock up on the popcorn just in case anyone needs extra help with letting his decisions “sink in.”
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Might have to get on Twitter after all!!
Nah.
I completely deserted Twitter in 2018. I have just a week or two ago Started looking at it again, Just 2 days after Musk took control posted using a new alias posted to Musk that Trump should be brought back, that his truthful tweets were funny, and that the adversaries chased their own tails was even funnier. I was promptly censored.
I filed an appeal, citing the fact that their conduct was likely to lead to termination.
I have been involved in acquisition and restructuring of unprofitable companies in the past. They first thing you do is trim the number of employees. There are always hurt feelings.
Fox News recently reported that the median pay at Twitter was $282,000. For that pay, Elon Musk has a lot of nerve asking employees to show up and work hard. /s
Can I get a job there? He can move his headquarters to Austin, he already has Tesla moved.
And I might say it’s a ridiculously monstrous building. Humongous.
Not Texas. Maybe Oklahoma, or Nebraska. Just spread the tech around the country.
The only reason it’s “Silicon valley” is because of HP and Apple.
The right is pretty much off Twitter so the vote is pretty nonsensical
Not sure why he would do this
If I were a betting man, I would put my $$ on the square saying this is an invitation to to Right to come back to Twitter or to sign up so they could participate in the vote…. or if a never-Trumper, a chance to vote against. In a word: recruitment.
But I could be wrong, its happened before.
that is a great point
I joined tonight. My son joined tonight. That is two new twitter followers, all because of that vote on Trump. How many other conservatives will join who never bothered before?
It appears the layoffs were very different than portrayed. In fact the majority of the hardware engineers and software programmers stayed in their seats. The reason is obvious. Who wouldn’t want to be in the technology department of a firm now affiliated by common ownership with the world’s premier satellite internet company, the world’s premier electric vehicle company, and the world’s premier space company. All of whom have had both hardware and software engineers and techs that have been with the firms for decades and are considered among the best in the world? Talk about a chance to get ahead.
This.
There’s a robust sub-literature in managing “gold collar workers”, meaning essentially professionals in a domain: engineers, doctors, scientists, technicians, statisticians, etc.
Net of that literature: people who identify with *their profession* before *their company*, based on *skill and peer position in that profession* are “hard to manage.” They aren’t. They want an opportunity to do the thing they’re good at and identify with. The Organization provides them the opportunity to do more, better, cooler, than they could by themselves.
Many called “engineers” aren’t built this way. BUT, many are.
These people foam at the mouth at the chance to go “hard core.”
Twitter. Ukraine. The 1st casualty of war is truth. Wait til the smoke clears; pile up the bodies; measure territory gained. ‘Extremely hardcore’ determination often decides winners and losers.
Dems are afraid honest fact checking on Twitter will expose their lies. CBS fears exposing dem lies and CBS coverups.
Agree with the whales analogy.
Poll just closed.
15 million votes, Trump won 51.8%.
Dem showflakes are melting across the globe. Yawn!
The lefties are upset bc they can longer count upon Twitter to push their narrative and downgrade or remove dissenting voices. There really isn’t a competitor at scale for Twitter that is also the backbone communication platform for the establishment and thought leaders. Nothing else Jas it’s reach and utility. It scares the d/prog that they have to compete in the marketplace of ideas.
The Twatter morons are melting down because literally for the entire existence of the company the goal of the company and employees HAS NOT BEEN TO MAKE MONEY.
Their goal all along has to just been to push their ideological crap. Making money has never even been on their radar.
That’s why Musk is going through the company with a chainsaw – because effectively the entire company has been staffed with ideological nutbags that provide ZERO value to the company. They were staffed with exclusively SJW insane ideologues, and the actual technical work was outsourced to contractors.
This isn’t like a regular company where new management comes in and streamlines the process by firing underperformers.
Elon is firing a huge amount of people THAT DID NOTHING for the company at any point in their existence, whose positions at Twitter should never have existed in the first place!
Jobs like ‘Niceness Maestro’ and ‘Trending Topics Curator’ should never have existed in the first place – those REAL POSITIONS at former Twitter, I AM NOT MAKING THAT UP.
When I was involved in restructuring companies it was difficult cutting people, but in the case of Twitter employees it would be fun kicking the dim wads to the curb. It is a shame that I am too old to get in on this.
They know less about making money than they do about economics.
“…canning tantrum-throwing longtimers who openly declared mutiny”
I’m old enough to remember when this was SOP for every corporation in America. Why did 99% of CEOs get stupid enough to land us in today’s fantasyland, where employees run companies and students run colleges?
So the people who stayed around were the actual STEM people, and the touchy-feely studies commissars got shown the door. Again, Musk shows how a Chad runs a company. If I weren’t retired, I’d have a resume on that man’s desk.
And fuck Ed Markey. Fuck him with a 12-foot saguaro.
Amen my brother! AMEN!!!
And oh yeah:
“CBS News and its owned and operated stations are “pausing” activity on Twitter; blaming “uncertainty” on the platform.”
That alone should raise both the average IQ and the average truth content on Twitter.
He didn’t even do that. He offered them an opt in to stay or a 3 mo severance. That’s about the most generous house cleaning I’ve ever seen.
And I meant to reply to your other comment…
CBS Comes Crawling Back, Ends Childish Boycott After Just Two Days
Does anyone realize that all those positions are for things like developing new software, fixing bugs in old software, maintaining users, selling advertisers?
Looking at the whole operation, the majority of work is in the server farms, which are probably not even owned by Twitter. Probably they are owned by Amazon (AWS ) but Bezos doesn’t want it known. Unlike parler he doesn’t want to lose their business.
There is a huge difference between coders and actual engineers. The same is true for productivity. With the mentality in Twitter, there is a shit load of underperforming staff.
“With the mentality in Twitter, there is a shit load of underperforming staff.”
This.
You could smell that from miles off. I never could account for their headcount, given what the place actually did, even with a culture of entanglement and infinite meetings. Now that I know gaggles weren’t even coming in, I can make it tie out.
Doesn’t mean you need them around for doing real work, tho…
“There is a huge difference between coders and actual engineers.”
So many don’t get that. Former boss of mine wouldn’t hire CS grads, for a massively software-dominated program, or any other similar ones before or after that one.
I had the best time at the local U’s Engineering Senior Project dog and pony show, this past spring. Actual thinking, with multiple models at once. Refreshing.
I remember Rush Limbaugh talking about when his sponsors got shellacked by bots. He did some kind of investigation and found out it was a super high percentage of leftist bots causing the ruckus. He never really explained how or what he found which was kind of frustrating.
Elon though may have played the bots (from both sides) by doing the poll about reinstating Trump. Elon mentioned in a tweet about how interesting it was to see the bots at work. So was the poll also a plan to out the bots in some fashion?
“So was the poll also a plan to out the bots in some fashion?”
Agreed. I’d say it’s a safe bet Elon’s up to something besides deciding whether or not to reinstate Trump.
Musk called in the ‘Bobs’
“Just what is it you DO here?”
I think it’s safe to say that most of the Twitter employees had never taken an economics class–how long did they think a company losing money could afford to pay them astronomical salaries to do nothing but censor conservatives, drink wine, and meditate?
246 years, but it isn’t exactly a “company.” At least it wasn’t founded as one.
The Campbell thread quoted in the article is bang on. When I was drop=in guy, granted at smaller scale, doling out test activities n calibrating was really management task 0.
With transparent performance practices in place, many of the parasites self-select out. That’s good. Firing is inconvenient, and high-overhead. Conveniently the same kind of transparent performance practices that encourage some folks to eject also build the record for people who decline to take the hint.