Twitter employees are reportedly mulling over whether they should stay with the company or leave after news broke of Elon Musk’s interest to push through with his purchase of the popular social media platform.

In an article by Bloomberg, many of Twitter’s workers were at a 2023 strategy presentation on Tuesday when news came out that Musk wanted to continue his acquisition of the social media giant for US$44bn.

While there was no official statement from Twitter, current and former staff closely monitored the development via their own personal Twitter feeds. They also used the social media platform to share their thoughts on the matter.

“Somebody’s tired of getting embarrassed in court,” a former Twitter employee wrote.

Meanwhile, another worker who runs a meme account on Twitter joked that people are trying to get through the day without crying.

Even people at Twitter’s New York office were supposedly in on the fun, playing the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by English punk rock band The Clash on the cafeteria sound system.

Whether it is a joke or not, the title of the song is likely what is going through the mind of many Twitter staff.

Musk’s antics

Musk has been one of the most controversial figures in business and on social media. The Tesla CEO has garnered a reputation of being a difficult person to work with among his employees.

Business Insider interviewed two former senior-level employees who said they were scared to tell Musk they disagreed with him.

“Because of the pressure that he puts on his entire executive team, his senior leadership team, even if they have the experience, they wouldn't dare speak up against him," one of the former workers said.

Musk is also vocal in his opposition to remote work. In May, he sent out an internal memo to Tesla employees requiring them to return to the office and spend ”a minimum of forty hours in the office per week”. He warned that failure to do so would be considered a phoned in effort on the part of his workers.

The Tesla boss did not do himself any favours in the eyes of Twitter employees after first announcing his plans to purchase the social media platform only to back out of the deal suddenly. This resulted in Twitter suing Musk to enforce the merger agreement. Musk responded by countersuing Twitter and then launching several tirades against the social media company’s executives. He even accused Twitter of having more bots than human users.

In the Bloomberg article, Twitter staff weren’t too keen to have the Tesla CEO as their possible new boss. Some take issue with Musk’s politics, personal life problems, and unpopular views on worker management.

The report also noted that several Twitter employees used the company’s internal Slack channels to mock Musk. One worker in particular wrote on Slack that the Tesla boss “puts the douche in fiduciary.”

It is still unclear whether Musk will end up acquiring Twitter. Only time will tell how the social media company’s employees would react to his brand of leadership and whether they would decide to stick around or walk away.