Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk's management style has been described as impulsive, tough and demanding. British media "Guardian" published a document saying that this pattern could lead to disastrous consequences on Twitter.

As we all know, Musk has always regarded products as more important than everything else. And whether or not the employees who make these products agree with his ambitious plans or the way he achieves them, they are often expected to put in more effort, even if they sometimes have to sleep on the company floor.

Twitter employees are preparing to adapt to Musk's management style, learning what kind of boss Musk is from years of media coverage and countless lawsuits against Tesla and SpaceX.

In June, for example, Musk laid off about 500 employees at Tesla's giant Nevada factory. Two of the former employees sued Tesla, saying it violated California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. The bill requires employers to give 60 days 'notice while continuing to pay wages and benefits during that period.

In 2017, Musk announced that the upcoming Tesla new car would have the hardware ready to eventually allow the car to drive itself, which caught many engineers inside the company off guard. Musk also said he wants Tesla employees to work 100 hours a week to prepare for the launch of the Model 3. In 2020, Tesla disbanded its entire public relations department.

In the days after Musk took over, Twitter employees saw a similar situation. In the following week, nearly half of Twitter's employees were fired with little notice, prompting many to file class-action lawsuits accusing Musk of violating California labor laws. The layoffs included Twitter's PR department, leaving the company without a PR team.

Twitter also faces a second complaint filed by contractors who claim they were similarly not notified before being fired.

Musk, meanwhile, tweeted product change announcements as new employees tried to do their best to complete their assigned tasks, some even tweeting photos of them sleeping on the floor. But even as Musk urged employees to roll out new features like paid verified Twitter Blue subscriptions as soon as possible, he told them to shelve the feature because of a number of problems.

In 2018, after a series of employee leaks, Tesla asked its employees to "reaffirm their vows" and sign new confidentiality agreements prohibiting them from talking to the media. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a legal challenge to the confidentiality agreement, citing violations of workers 'rights.

Twitter, which existed before Musk took over, allowed employees to resist or criticize company policies publicly to some extent, but now dissenting employees are equally stifled. Several employees who publicly criticized or contradicted Musk's comments on Twitter were fired.

In one case, Musk publicly announced the firing of an engineer named Eric Frohnhoefer, who wrote a post correcting Musk's speculation about why the site was loading too slowly. Musk also reportedly fired employees who criticized him internally for using third-party messaging service Slack.

In terms of productivity, Musk asked employees to make a decision by the deadline: whether they would like to work long hours and high intensity or voluntarily leave for severance pay equivalent to three months 'salary. According to Twitter's internal estimates, 1000 to 1200 of the remaining employees have chosen to leave after the layoffs, leaving only certain key roles and core employees. Musk wrote in a letter to employees: "only outstanding performance counts as a pass. "

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer representing fired Twitter employees and contractors, said her office always receives "requests from Twitter employees who want to clarify their rights."

On Thursday, Rees-Riorden filed a new lawsuit ahead of the deadline, accusing Musk of violating the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by demanding employees return to the office and work intense, long hours. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed by Rees-Riorden on behalf of an engineering manager who said he was fired for refusing to return to his office because of his disability, putting him at risk of contracting COVID-19.

Rees-Riordan said in a statement: "Since taking over Twitter, Musk has caused great pain and uncertainty for company employees in such a short time. His ultimatum to employees was that they had to decide by a deadline whether they wanted to be part of the 'new Twitter' and that put them in an extremely difficult position. "

Musk's behavior may come as a shock to many, but it's not entirely surprising to former Tesla and SpaceX employees. At SpaceX, eight former employees alleged a similar culture of retaliation and filed a complaint with the NLRB on Thursday, saying they were fired for sending an open letter challenging Musk in June. "Musk's behavior in public often distracts and embarrasses us," the letter reads. "

At Tesla, former employees say Musk only cares about the product. A former Tesla employee suggested that long hours are inevitable, so people have to be sure how long they can last.

Musk's management style and decision-making on Twitter will likely continue to be exposed to the public, determined by the nature of the company, while Musk himself has a strong preference for tweeting, and he seems to have unparalleled enthusiasm for tweeting. By the end of the first week in November, Musk was tweeting more than 25 times a day.

But it's unclear how long Musk plans to run Twitter. During a Nov. 16 court hearing on Tesla's compensation package, Musk said he eventually planned to hand over control of Twitter. "I want to reduce the amount of time I spend on Twitter," he said. Over time, I'll find someone else to run Twitter. "

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