“Mr. Musk, There’s A Wolf At The Door To See You…” 🐺

I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022

Well, now it makes sense:

In an email to the social media platform’s employees, seen by the Guardian, its new owner said building the next iteration of Twitter would require exceptional performance. 

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” Musk wrote. 

The message asked staff to click on a link if they want to be “part of the new Twitter” by 5pm New York time (10pm GMT) on Thursday. Anyone who has not affirmed their commitment by that deadline, Musk said, would receive three months of severance pay.

Context is all:

For background, Twitter was fined $150 million last spring for violating a 2011 consent decree with the FTC regarding the security of its user data. The platform violated that agreement by illegally using data that consumers provided the company to secure their accounts to create targeted ads to generate profit for the company. In addition to the fine, the FTC modified the consent decree to require Twitter to meet additional (and onerous) programmatic, reporting and compliance requirements regarding its products. Among these requirements were the creation of a “comprehensive privacy and security program” overseen by a designated senior officer, a comprehensive written report within 30 days on the privacy risks and safeguards (backed up by testing) for each “new or modified product, practice or service” rolled out by the company, and an annual certification of compliance issued by a senior corporate manager. Twitter must also submit a compliance notice to the FTC within 14 days of any changes to the structure of the company or points of contact regarding compliance. This consent decree was in effect when Musk took over the company last month. 

(NB: The consent decree with the FTC should not be confused with a completely separate consent decree Musk entered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 after tweeting false information about Tesla that impacted that company’s stock prices. Musk was personally fined $20 million and appointed a “Twitter sitter” who would review his future tweets to ensure that they did not run afoul of SEC regulations.) 

Considering its FTC obligations, the exodus of Twitter’s privacy and security officers isn’t surprising. The Washington Post reported that Musk’s hastily rolled out Twitter Blue subscription service, which allowed users to purchase a blue check for a fee, did not follow its internal risk evaluation process because the team that was responsible for doing so was — you guessed it — laid off. 

The new product resulted in hundreds of users impersonating verified accounts, wreaking havoc on companies like Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin and even prompting Sen. Ed Markey — who was impersonated by a Washington Post reporter testing out the subscription’s vulnerabilities — to send Musk a letter, demanding answers. 

Ultimately, the buck on the safety and compliance of Musk’s new brainchild would fall on his senior corporate officers, who most likely concluded that signing off on privacy reviews without conducting full due diligence could bring them personally into the FTC’s crosshairs. So who’s doing the reviews in their absence? That’s unclear. 

Reportedly, Twitter’s engineers are being asked to “self-certify” products they are creating. Given that each privacy review has 14 different components, many of which are more legal than technical in nature, it’s hard to see how a rank-and-file engineer would be in a position to adequately certify Twitter’s products. In fact, one former member of Twitter’s legal department sent a letter to current employees warning them that this burden shifting will “put a huge amount of personal, professional, and legal risk onto engineers.”

Tl;dr: Musk has chased off everybody who made Twitter function and despite his bravado (Musk's personal lawyer said Musk sends rockets into space; he's not afraid of the FTC.  A non-sequitur to end non-sequiturs, but I guess it sounds tough.) the FTC is at the door. Musk has no choice but to double-down (having painted himself into this corner) by pressuring the remaining employees to shit gold for the Emperor:

Second, an enforcement action by the FTC could create a vicious downward spiral for Musk. Apart from any fines the company might incur, the FTC could further modify the consent decree to add even more safety, compliance and reporting requirements than it has now. That, of course, would create more pressure on his current skeleton crew, potentially prompting more departures — all at the same time that he would need to increase his staffing to stay in compliance with the law and keep the company afloat.

Increasing staffing is clearly something Musk will not do. I just wonder how many Twitter employees can afford to quit. After the country’s experience with Covid and employment struggles at so many businesses, a lot of them may decide this is not, as the commercial of my youth put it: living. I mean, ultimately the FTC is going to start holding individuals responsible, even criminally responsible. Who at Twitter wants to be that person now?  "... a huge amount of personal, professional, and legal risk onto engineers"?  Yeah, that'll inspire loyalty to the new boss.

Quitting is never an easy (or even wise) decision, but when work conditions become impossible…