Employees at Twitter are frustrated by Elon Musk's unkept promises.
The Tesla billionaire, who took over Twitter six months ago, has for months told remaining employees that they will be rewarded for "excellent" performance, including in the form of restricted stock units. Even those who have been told that they're performing up to Musk's mercurial standards have yet to reap any such rewards. Instead, they've received further cuts to benefits, "nebulous" and "shady" promises of future financial returns, and more work. Some even regularly work 100-hour weeks given the lack of staff and Musk's shifting demands, two people familiar with the company said.
Earlier this year several employees received letters of "intent to grant" a certain amount in company stock priced at "fair market value" with no information on price or when grants would be issued, the people familiar said. In March, Musk told employees in an email reported by the newsletter Platformer that Twitter, now part of X Corp., is currently valued at $20 billion, or less than half the $44 billion he paid to acquire it in October.
Musk did not share any detail of how that valuation was reached, according to the people familiar. Although, an accurate valuation doesn't matter much right now, since no employees have received any grants of company stock as yet. They still only have the emailed "intent to grant" letters, one of the people familiar said. And, as of this week, there has been "no transparency" into the valuation of the company or pricing of the expected shares.
"We're all assuming they may not be worth anything," the person familiar said. "The story was that committing to Twitter 2.0 will be rewarding, but he's failed to deliver."
Musk and other representatives of Twitter did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Twitter also recently told employees that there will no longer be any cash bonuses given to anyone at the company. Although employees were supposed to receive a payout for bonuses earned last year, none of the bonuses have been funded, the people familiar said.
One of the people familiar expressed doubt that performers deemed "excellent" will ever receive anything for their work under Musk and that the "intent to grant" letters were simply an "attempt to retain people." Through layoffs, firings, and attrition, Twitter is now down to roughly 1,000 employees, as Insider reported.
Beyond the lack of any financial reward, Musk has continued to drastically cut benefits at Twitter. The latest is paid parental leave, which is now just two weeks, down from a previous paid leave policy of 20 weeks. Outside of that leave period, Twitter employees will be able to take unpaid leave up to the amount mandated by state law. In California, where Twitter is still based, workers are legally entitled to 12 weeks of protected, but unpaid, parental leave.
Workers initially learned of the change to the leave policy last month through their managers, the people familiar said. They then realized company documents outlining benefits had been changed, although there was no internal announcement of the change. It created so much consternation among staff that Twitter's new head of HR, Walter Gilbert, who joined from Reddit and earlier worked for Musk at SpaceX, addressed it briefly in a meeting with staff, one of the people familiar said.
The person described Gilbert's comments during the meeting as "spin," as he claimed that two weeks of paid parental leave brought Twitter's policy in line with other Musk-owned companies.
That appears to be untrue. At Tesla, currently, Musk's only publicly listed company, workers receive 16 weeks, or four months, of paid parental leave, according to its most recent impact report. At SpaceX, which is a private company and makes no such public reports, paid parental leave is said to be four weeks, in addition to whatever is mandated by state law.
Musk has fathered 10 known children, including youngest son X, who has been frequently spotted at Twitter's San Francisco offices, according to the people familiar. The billionaire last year said he intended to increase childcare benefits at all of his companies.
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