They could still do RSUs but you’ve got some big creditors who are first in line.

Or to put it another way:

Interviewee: "What's my upside here?"

Elon: "RSUs in this illiquid private company."

Interviewee: "Under what circumstances do they become liquid?"

Elon: "We have to first make money above and beyond paying this crushing debt, then we have to have a growth story to sell to the public, then we goi public, then you wait out the employee lockout period, and if you're still an employee, you can sell your RSUs."

Interviewee: "So, like, 2-5 years of sleeping in the office to win Survivor Twitter and not get fired, plus I have to depend upon you to steer us to profitability."

Elon: "Exactly. And when it comes to profitability, my favourite tactic is firing people like you."

Beautifully written.

And… is there even a future liquidity event planned? How helpful is an RSU if there’s no opportunity to turn it into cash at some future date?

All this would make some sense, but Elon is asking for a blank check from the remaining employees. There is no promise right now, there is no pay off, there are no RSUs, there is no liquidity event, there is ... nothing.

Just one of the wealthiest people in history asking people to work 12 hour days every day of the week, forever, for some nebulous reasons that he can't state, just because.

Such a radical renegotiation of the employment agreement between the workers and the management requires a LOT of study and time. Not two days and clicking a button that says you agree to something.

You'd be crazy to agree to this, and Elon would be crazy to think that anyone that did click is doing anything but trying to find another job while at work.

> Elon would be crazy to think that anyone that did click is doing anything but trying to find another job while at work.

Haha, can someone tweet this at him so he sees it. He thinks he'll be getting dedicated loyal employees (let's deem them the Yes-clickers), but if he becomes aware of this flaw in his plan, he's going to treat them with paranoia and mistrust as well.

I really munch popcorn hope he twigs that soon.

While holidays are coming up (so probably not much happening for a month or two on the employment front) and pretty slow times in the tech sector in general, I think I'd still be hard put to turn down 3 months (supposedly) guaranteed at this point. Obviously visa holders might be in a different boat as may people preferring to keep an uncertain but possibly longer-term job whatever the pain. However, given the uncertainty even for those who stay, I can't imagine not taking the payout for most.

> Just one of the wealthiest people in history asking people to work 12 hour days every day of the week, forever, for some nebulous reasons that he can't state, just because.

"a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is"

Lombard Street?

And even if there is a future liquidity event, what could the return possibly be? Musk already bought Twitter at a premium over the market, then the whole market backslid, then he took control and cratered the company even further. Any equity is already a small fraction of what it would have been worth before this whole ordeal. To get any startup like return, Musk doesn't have to just right the ship, he has to make Twitter drastically more successful than it was before.

Part of the deal of going "hardcore" working at a startup is that you get a small chance of becoming rich. I don't think working 80 hrs/wk is worth it when the upside is adding an extra 20% or whatever onto your salary.

Besides getting rich there is always the mission. So the question to ask Elon is...

"How many people still working at Twitter hated all the woke crap like banning Nazis and were practically begging some conservative billionaire to buy the site, fire everyone, and turn it into an extremely successful free-speech Libertarian playground like Parler or Truth Social?"

Those are the only people who would willingly take his offer. Almost everyone else working there now has a job mobility problem, but the moment that problem gets solved, they're out.

Some businesses do just fine with employees that don't really want to work there, but they typically have enormous hiring funnels running 24/7/365 to handle the churn. Like McDonalds or Amazon's warehouses. Twitter doesn't have that, and you won;t find it at PayPal, Tesla, or SpaceX.

They have all the H1Bs who can't leave. So essentially Twitter just became Infosys.

Most people working at a startup in which you have equity will make nothing from the equity. You do get to fantasize, like buying a lottery ticket.

I would say for me working hard at startups was mostly because I enjoyed the technical challenge, the culture, and the team I was working with. And I was paid pretty well. I placed $0 value on my equity (and for me that's also what it ended up being worth).

I once worked for an adtech company that had profit sharing instead of RSUs. The early employees were compensated very well because it was unsurprisingly very profitable. I joined after they raised money so they switched to "phantom equity" in a LLC instead of RSUs. When they went public I was granted 1 stock for every piece of phantom equity plus about $5. These weren't options, I didn't have to pay anything to exercise them. Worked out to a 50% appreciation over two-ish years of working there, so not too shabby at all.

The point is there's other forms of variable compensation beside options you can give to employees of a private entity that are just as good (or even better) than options that may or may not become liquid over 7-10 years. Twitter could set up something similar to entice top performers to stay.

At this point, I find it extremely doubtful that Musk realizes he actually needs willing employees in the first place.

I'd never grind myself into the dust again for a company I don't have a stake in somehow. You have to be able to control your outcome on a big bet.