2023 becomes the year Twitter dies, and now there is only X. "The old Twitter before Musk arrived was a workplace full of idealists who believed they were making the world a better place. Are they just naive?" On December 12, local time, the technology media TheVerge published an article reviewing Twitter's "extremely soft-core (a joke on Musk's "extremely hardcore") culture before Elon Musk's acquisition in October last year. Employees focused on the ideals of improving the health of online conversations, and the changes that occurred after the acquisition.


Today, the name Twitter no longer exists. As early as this summer, Musk changed its name to X. And many of the things Twitter represents no longer exist.

“We attach great importance to employee happiness, almost to the point of going too far.”

The article stated that in the early 2010s, Twitter was at its peak. The company is not yet profitable but has played a crucial role in the chaos in the Middle East and the Occupy Wall Street movement. While not reaching the scale of its rivals, the platform dominates in terms of cultural and political influence. Twitter posts spread quickly and have wide reach, shaping the world in seemingly progressive ways.

Engineer Menotti Minutillo looks back on his application process at Twitter. At the time, he was working as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, a company whose mission was just to make money, working long hours and facing a wave of layoffs during the financial crisis. He was impressed by the relaxed, college-like atmosphere at Twitter headquarters. There, you can drink cold brew coffee and eat all you want snacks. The employees are working hard, but they are not working all the time. “It’s not like laziness, it’s more laissez-faire,” Minitillo said. Toward the end of the summer of 2012, Minitillo became a program manager on Twitter's information security team.

“Twitter takes employee happiness very seriously, almost to the point of excess,” said a former engineer who joined Twitter nearly a decade after Minitillo. “Frankly, that appealed to me. I didn’t want to work 80 hours a week. I loved spending time with my kids.”

Twitter's physical amenities—salad bar, yoga room, Eames chairs—are a large part of the appeal, but its uniqueness has always been intangible: the approachability of its executives, the cultural clout of the platform, and a sense that, for better or worse, money is not the point.

There's also the fact that many employees appreciate that, especially in recent years, Twitter has focused on improving the health of online conversations rather than achieving growth at all costs. That might sound naive for a business, but for a while at least, the company embodied Silicon Valley's idealistic promise: You can make money while making the world a better place.


Before Musk's acquisition in October last year, Twitter's culture was "extremely soft-core."

"Join Twitter because of our mission"

Content strategist Shauna Wright had 300,000 followers on the platform before joining Twitter, which she accumulated through constant political tweets. She was unsure whether those followers were an asset or a liability for Twitter, whose then-CEO Jack Dorsey seemed increasingly sensitive to accusations of political bias.

But luckily for Wright, one of Twitter's core values ​​is communicating fearlessly to build trust. Employees have a lot of freedom to express themselves inside and outside the office. Facebook has an employee-only version of the app, while Twitter's employee-only version is the same public version everyone sees. "They gave me absolute carte blanche to do whatever I wanted on Twitter," Wright said.

Like many Twitter employees, Wright didn't take the job for the money. Salaries at Twitter are not as high as those at Apple or Netflix. But for employees like Wright, who uses and loves Twitter, there's no comparison. "Don't get me wrong, we were spoiled for choice. You could choose from six or seven different dishes for lunch," she explained. "But as far as salary, we could have gone elsewhere and made more money. We joined Twitter because of our mission."

Twitter's culture was changing during the time Wright joined. It is in the midst of a heated debate over content moderation. Despite all evidence suggesting otherwise, conservatives are convinced that Twitter is banning their accounts through subtle means. After all, tech workers in the Bay Area are known for their left-leaning stance and outspoken politics. Meanwhile, Democrats were equally alarmed that Twitter was not doing enough to combat misinformation, including from then-President Donald Trump. Tensions within the company grew as employees disagreed over how and when to intervene.

CEO Dorsey has also been grilled in public. On stage at the TED2019 conference in Vancouver, TED CEO Chris Anderson asked him: "What is your biggest concern about the current situation?" "The health of the conversation." Dorsey responded without hesitation, "Our purpose is to serve the public conversation, and we have seen some attacks on it. We have seen abuse, harassment, manipulation, automated and human collaboration, misinformation... What worries me most is our ability to solve these problems in a scalable and systematic way."

Tech investor Roger McNamee, who attended the meeting, thought Dorsey looked miserable. But some tech workers were inspired. Many people still want to believe that social media can be a force for good. Facebook's reputation has been damaged since the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, adding fuel to Trump's presidential campaign. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may be willing to move fast and break things, but Dorsey is publicly committed to moving slowly and getting things done. Despite his coyness, vague promises and broad statements in his TED interview, what he's built feels thoughtful and idealistic.

"It was at that moment that many of us were convinced to work at Twitter," one former health researcher told The Verge.

Either commit to "extreme hardcore" or leave

In January 2020, more than 4,000 Twitter employees gathered in Houston, Texas for a space-themed event. Dorsey spoke with special guest Musk via FaceTime. "Give us some direct feedback, criticism, what are we not doing well, what can we do better, what are your expectations for our potential as a service?" he asked Musk, "If you were running Twitter — which, by the way, do you want to run Twitter? What would you do?" Musk suggested distinguishing between bot accounts and real users.

In 2021, Dorsey stepped down, and the following year, Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion.

On the day Musk entered Twitter's headquarters carrying a sink, he also brought his son, XÆA-Xii, to the office. In the early months of the acquisition, the toddler was frequently seen near Twitter's headquarters. Employees recounted a scene in which Musk was sitting in a conference room talking to a group of engineers. Musk agreed. XÆA-Xii fell silent again with satisfaction. For those who were there, this was the human side. Whether Musk is an erratic boss, an internet troll or a visionary, he's also a parent.

But the reality is not so ideal. "We have a meeting around 11 or 12 o'clock in the evening, and XÆA-Xii is there..." a Twitter executive revealed, pointing out that although this situation may be ideal for Musk, who doesn't like to be alone, it may not be ideal for children.

Musk later cut the company's parental leave from 20 weeks to the legal minimum, plus a two-week leave cap.

Musk doesn’t like Twitter’s inclusive atmosphere. According to his biographer Walter Isaacson, the term "psychological safety" made him cringe.

In November 2022, Musk found a cabinet in the Twitter office filled with T-shirts with the words "#StayWoke" printed on them. The clothes commemorate the shooting death of black man Michael Brown. In 2014, Dorsey flew to Ferguson, Missouri, to participate in protests. Twitter played an important role in exposing police violence and allowing organizers to spread the message, helping turn Black Lives Matter into a national movement.

When Musk discovered these T-shirts, he was ecstatic. To him, the T-shirts were evidence of Twitter's left-wing bias. "Found in a closet at Twitter HQ (for real)," he tweeted triumphantly, along with a video of the clothes.

Nine days later, Musk fired Wright and about half the company's employees. Wright isn't sure if he knew she ran an account with 300,000 followers, but it's clear his views on free speech didn't extend to employees. Dozens of employees were quickly fired after criticizing Musk publicly either within Slack or on Twitter.

Less than two weeks later, Musk sent his first company-wide email as CEO announcing the end of the post-pandemic remote work regime. "The road ahead is arduous and will require hard work to achieve success," he wrote. Soon after, he gave his remaining employees an ultimatum: Commit to "extreme hardcore" or leave. Minitillo chose the latter.

Wright now posts on Twitter competitor Threads in an attempt to rebuild his fan base. "It's so painful to watch all the work we've done to keep people safe and keep the conversation healthy being systematically undermined in such a short period of time," she said.

TheVerge writes that it’s hard to imagine Twitter reaching the political and cultural influence it once had, and even harder to imagine how it could still be a force for progressive social movements, especially when the free speech policies promoted by its new owners boil down to retweeting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Dorsey deluded himself into thinking that Twitter might be a utopian vision of a tech company that employees wanted to believe could last.

“When Elon Musk took over, it was like the mask slipped,” said one former Twitter engineer. “We realized we were working under capitalism.”