1,200 Full-Time Twitter Employees Reportedly Left After Musk’s Ultimatum
Twitter isfacing an employee exodusthat is remarkable to witness, but not entirely surprising. After laying off nearly half of Twitter’s entire workforce within days oftaking over as the new CEO, Elon Musk continued decimating entire departments and prompting the exit of brilliant minds like the top security and legal executives. Now,The New York Timesreports that nearly 1,200 employees have resigned in yet another shock for the company, which is currently scrambling for talent to support crucial systems.
Musk recently wrote an email to employees detailing his plans for a Twitter 2.0, one that wouldgo “extremely hardcore” with high intensity workand an engineering-driven approach. The focus is supposed to be on writing code, and in the eyes of Musk, even exceptional performance would be seen as “a passing grade.” More importantly, Musk put a deadline, asking employees to either accept the proposal by Thursday evening at 5 pm, or leave with a 3-month severance pay.
It’s been a ridepic.twitter.com/0VDf5hn2UA
— Matt Miller (@brainiaq2000)August 17, 2025
It appears that Musk’s message didn’t sit well with a bunch of Twitter employees, of which there were only about 3,700 left following the aggressive lay-offs. Some of them evenhung upthrough Musk’s conference call, while others recordedfootageof the countdown as Musk’s deadline expired, openly showcasing their defiance and submitting voluntary resignations.
An irreversible path to losing employees
Per internal documents cited in the report, a total of 1,200 employees have chosen to say goodbye, which is nearly a third of Twitter’s entire workforce, as per rough estimates. According toInsider, “less than half of the company’s remaining roughly 4,000 employees chose on Thursday to stay at the company.” Per Insider, the company is currently left with only about 2,000 employees.Fortunealso reports that anywhere between 1,000 and 1,200 employees had resigned following Musk’s Twitter 2.0 email.
Many senior software engineers at Twitter have left, but among people still working at Twitter are immigrants, whose visas depend on them having jobs.
This is not a thing to celebrate â€" it just shows that immigrants have fewer worker rights and fewer options.
— Pranay Manocha (@PranMan)August 13, 2025
Plus, it appears that not everyone who is left at Twitter is doing so because they believe in Musk’s vision of hardcore engineering. Multiple journalists and startup figures have opined that a lot immigrant workers tied to work visa rules have no option but to stick with their current employer, especially those in the US. As per data seen byViceon the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s website, Twitter currently has approximately 300 employees working in its U. S. offices with an H-1B visa permit.
According to information shared by an anonymous employee withThe Verge, “it will be extremely hard for Twitter to recover from here, no matter how hardcore the people who remain attempt to be.” In the meantime, Musk isreportedlyat Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco, interacting with the remaining employees and deciding on a future course of action. This is happening afterTwitter suspended employee badge accessand shut down its office until next week.
