We’re hiring! Tech companies appeal to ex-Twitter staff 

Twitter laid off around half its workforce in the past month, with as many as 3,700 redundancies in its offices worldwide, along with several top executives at the company.

Musk, who bought the platform for $44bn (£39bn) in late October, told his remaining staff that remote working is banned, except in special cases, which Musk would personally review.

On Thursday, he set a deadline for all employees to respond “yes” on a Google form if they want to stay for what he is calling “Twitter 2.0”, according to reports.

Those who didn’t sign the form would receive a severance package and it would be their final day of work.

After the deadline hit, hundreds of employees started posting farewell messages in the company Slack, announcing that they had declined Musk’s ultimatum.

Amanda Richardson, chief executive of recruitment software start-up CoderPad, published an open letter to Twitter leavers to apply to work at talent-starved technology firms.

Richardson described Musk’s takeover as “terribly frustrating, depressing and demotivating”.

She wrote on LinkedIn: “An open letter to the former employees of Twitter who didn’t click the ‘opt in’ button for their jobs yesterday.

“I see you. I believe in you. I believe that great work can be accomplished from your laptop - no matter where it physically is. I believe commitment and care doesn’t come from hours but from impact.

She continued: “The tech industry needs more equity and fairness. We need more diversity and perspectives. I believe hiring and selection is where that starts. You should be hired based on your skills - not your zip code.

You should be rewarded for your impact - not pledging 24/7 schedule devotion. 

“At CoderPad, we believe your skills say it all. Not where you sit. Not if you sleep at work. Not working seven days a week for 18 hours a day.”

Musk’s distaste of remote work is widely known. At Tesla, staff are expected to spend a “minimum of 40 hours in the office per week”.

He wrote in an email to Tesla staff in June: “The office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo-office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”

The scrapping of hybrid working is in stark contrast to Twitter’s former chief executive Parag Agrawal’s views, who in March said staff could continue to work from home “forever”.

Katie Burke, chief people officer at US software company HubSpot also wrote on LinkedIn: “As a leader, getting criticized is part of your job.

“Great leaders recognize debate and disagreement makes you better and is part of the process. If you want a place where you can disagree (in a kind, clear manner of course) with people, HubSpot is hiring.” 

Koo, a social media platform seen as India’s Twitter alternative, is also appealing to ex-Twitter staff.

Koo, which caters primarily to non-English users in India, launched in early 2020.

It expanded to Nigeria in 2021 when the country suspended Twitter. It now wants to reach 100 million users by the end of 2022.

Its co-founder Mayank Bidawatka tweeted: “Very sad to see #RIPTwitter and related # to this going down. We’ll hire some of these Twitter ex-employees as we keep expanding and raise our larger, next round. They deserve to work where their talent is valued. Micro-blogging is about people power. Not suppression."