Thin ranks at Twitter raise fears of implosion

Elon Musk’s managerial bulldozing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of software engineers who keep the world’s de facto public square up and running that industry insiders and programmers who were fired or resigned this week agree: Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.

Musk ended a very public argument with nearly two dozen coders crucial to the microblogging platform’s stability by ordering them fired this week. Hundreds of engineers and other workers then quit after he demanded they pledge to “extremely hardcore” work by Thursday evening or resign with severance pay.

The newest departures mean the platform is losing workers just at it gears up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which opens Sunday. It’s one of Twitter’s busiest events, when tweet surges heavily stress its systems.

Hundreds of employees signaled they were leaving ahead of Thursday’s deadline, either posting farewell messages, a salute emoji or other familiar symbols on the company’s internal Slack messaging board, according to employees who still have access, or publicly on Twitter.

Twitter leadership sent an unsigned email after Thursday’s deadline saying its offices would be closed and employee badge access disabled until Monday. No reason was given, according to two employees who received the email.

Indicating how strapped he is for programmers, Musk sent all-hands emails Friday summoning “anyone who actually writes software” to his command perch on Twitter’s 10th floor at 2 p.m. — asking that they fly into San Francisco if not local, said an employee who quit Thursday but was still receiving company emails.