"No way to sugarcoat": read Elon Musk's first email to Twitter employees

Elon Musk, after taking over Twitter, has made sweeping changes to the microblogging site.

The Tesla CEO, fired Twitter staff across the globe last week.

Musk addressed advertisers through a Twitter Spaces, saying that the company would do a lot of "dumb things".


In a mail to his employees, Musk asked the employees to return to office for at least 40 hours a week.

Here is a copy of the mail, the Twitter CEO sent to the employees:

Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message.

Frankly, the economic picture ahead is dire, especially for a company like ours that is so dependent on advertising in a challenging economic climate. Moreover, 70% of our advertising is brand, rather than specific performance, which makes us doubly vulnerable!

That is why the priority over the past ten days has been to develop and launch Twitter Blue Verified subscriptions (huge props to the team!). Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn. We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.

Of course, we will still then be significantly reliant on advertising, so I am spending time with our sales & partnerships teams to ensure that Twitter continues to be appealing to advertisers.

The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed. We are also changing Twitter policy such that remote work is no longer allowed, unless you have a specific exception. Managers will send the exceptions lists to me for review an approval.

Starting tomorrow (Thursday), everyone is required to be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. Obviously, if you are physically unable to travel to an office or have a critical personal obligation, then your absence is understandable.

I look forward to working with you to take Twitter to a whole new level. The potential is truly incredible!

Thanks, Elon