The rapidly evolving Elon Musk Twitter saga has taken the platform by storm, and employees of the social media giant are watching their company drama play out in the most public way possible.
On Thursday, Musk announced his “best and final offer” (also his first) to buy the social media company for $43 billion. He criticized Twitter’s management for failing to maintain a platform for free speech, saying that he alone could unlock the company’s “extraordinary potential.”
The announced bid comes a week into a protracted storyline that started on April 4 with Musk increasing his stake in the company to 9.2%. Soon afterward, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that Musk would be joining the company’s board. Then Musk really kicked things into overdrive when he rejected the board’s offer on Monday, leaving open the possibility that he could increase his stake further and initiate a takeover of the social media giant.
But for Twitter’s 8,000-plus employees, the saga may have felt more like a roller coaster at the worst possible time.
Musk’s attempted takeover came in the middle of a “focus week” at Twitter. Employees were treated to a day off on Monday and minimal meetings throughout the week. During focus weeks, company-initiated nonessential meetings are canceled, and individual teams are encouraged to do the same, to give employees more uninterrupted time to finish projects.
But even the most diligent employee at Twitter must have had a hard time focusing on work during the latest developments, and workers used their own platform to voice their frustrations.
“Hey this is a focus week at Twitter, this is not helping,” one engineer for the company tweeted in response to Musk announcing his takeover offer.
Another mentioned focus week and posted an emoji of a roller coaster.
“I need another focus week!” another employee tweeted.
“Happy first day of my PTO,” one employee tweeted.
Some workers have expressed disappointment and disdain at the news.
“Just go to therapy dude,” a team lead at the company wrote, referring to Musk.
But other Twitter users joked about the potential takeover and the reactions to it.
“‘I’m going to leave Twitter if Elon Musk takes over’ is the new ‘I’m going to move to Canada if Trump wins,’” one user shared.
Last Sunday, Twitter chief Agrawal warned that the Musk story could mean “distractions ahead” for the forthcoming week, but emphasized that the company’s “goals and priorities remain unchanged.”
“Let’s tune out the noise,” Agrawal said to employees.