Twitter exodus begins after Musk 'hardcore' ultimatum

Employee departures multiplied at Twitter on Thursday after an ultimatum from new owner Elon Musk, who demanded staff choose between being "extremely hardcore" and working long hours, or losing their jobs.

"I may be #exceptional, but gosh darn it, I'm just not #hardcore," tweeted one former employee, Andrea Horst, whose LinkedIn profile still reads "Supply Chain & Capacity Management (Survivor) @Twitter."

She added the hashtag "#lovewhereyouworked," as did many other employees announcing their choice.

Musk, also the CEO of Tesla and

SpaceX, has come under fire for radical changes at the social media company, which he bought for $44 billion late last month.

He had already fired half of the company's 7,500 staff, scrapped a work-from-home policy and imposed long hours, all while his attempts to overhaul Twitter have faced chaos and delays. His stumbling attempts to revamp user verification with a controversial subscription service have led to a slew of fake accounts and pranks, and prompted major advertisers to step away from the platform.

Much of the fevered talk driving engagement on Twitter late on Thursday was concerning the possibility of the site's imminent demise.

Musk noted the irony by posting the popular meme of an actor jokingly posing over a grave. Both the man and the tombstone were overlaid with Twitter's logo. The post was "liked" by more than 1 million users.

In a later tweet, sent during Friday's early hours on the West Coast, the billionaire said: "Record numbers of users are logging in to see if Twitter is dead, ironically making it more alive than ever!"

The troubled social media network's management told employees Thursday that offices were temporarily closed and inaccessible, even with a badge, according to Zoe Schiffer, a journalist for the tech industry newsletter Platformer.