Elon Musk’s July 8 decision to unilaterally pull out of the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter may have fallen afoul of the terms of his takeover agreement and baffled the general public. It also caused chaos within Twitter’s ranks.
“Twitter is a shit show internally; I can confirm that for you right now, without a doubt,” says one Twitter employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to talk to the media.
They are far from alone in this view. “There’s no strong leadership at the moment,” says a second current Twitter staffer, also speaking anonymously. “The entire company is running on autopilot.” A third, who is set to leave the company, is equally exasperated. “I expect it is going to be a mess,” they say. “I’d like to see someone hold Elon’s feet to the fire because I think it sets a risky precedent to allow him to meddle so much, drive down the stock, then pull out.”
Twitter staff have been told not to speak publicly on their own platform about the takeover—and say they are being kept in the dark. “We’ve been told nothing by senior management,” says the first employee. Internal communications about the latest developments have been limited to a message pointing users to a tweet by company chair Bret Taylor, who said the Twitter board is “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement.”
Employees have been asked not to add their own comments about what is going on at the company. “Every time I find out something about Twitter, I find out on Twitter,” says the first employee. “I found out about the Musk news via friends, not through my own company—which has been a consistent issue from the beginning.” Twitter declined to comment.
The mess looks likely to end up in court. Twitter has hired Delaware litigation law firm Wachtell Lipton to make sure Musk holds up his end of the deal. At the time of his tweet, Taylor said he was “confident” the company would prevail. Former Twitter CEO and chair Evan Williams has said he thinks that Twitter should cut ties and “let this whole ugly episode blow over.”
“For Twitter, this fiasco is a nightmare scenario and will result in an Everest-like uphill climb for Parag [Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO] and Co. to navigate the myriad of challenges ahead,” says Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, a New York analyst firm. Among the challenges Twitter faces are employee turnover and low morale, issues around advertising headwinds, a loss of credibility with investors because of the yo-yoing share price, and damaging claims about fake accounts on the platform.
