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Elon Musk’s tenure as chief executive of Twitter has been eventful, to say the least. In the past three months — it’s only been three months! — Musk has done everything from gutting the leadership team to censoring his competitors to personally picking public fights with vitally important colleagues. It’s been a ride. Some people thought the rollercoaster had finally come to a stop when the billionaire put his own job up for an open vote and lost.
Never underestimate Elon Musk’s ability to make a scene, however. He’s still in charge at Twitter — in his own words, Musk will stay CEO “until he finds someone foolish enough to take the job” (via KTVU) — and, more importantly, he’s going to stay Twitter’s sole shareholder for the foreseeable future. He clearly intends to make Twitter deliver at least enough profit to service his debts, which, per The New York Times, calls for $1 billion a year just to cover the interest. That, unfortunately, is where the bathroom issues come in.
A dirty job and no one is doing it
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To date, one of Musk’s primary strategies for maximizing Twitter’s profits has been a campaign of cost cuts. Musk has notoriously terminated much of Twitter’s workforce — over 75%, per the Times — and inspired more to leave voluntarily, including firing most of the original board of directors “for cause” possibly to avoid paying severance benefits. Twitter has subsequently suffered some outages and technical glitches widely ascribed to a lack of technically proficient staff.
Of late, the lack of competent help at Twitter has grown more obvious. According to Insider, employees at Twitter’s New York HQ have filled Slack channels with complaints and pleas for assistance from a surprising sector: facility support staff. With janitorial and maintenance staff largely laid off, and bound by their CEO’s insistence that everyone work an in-office five-day week, employees have reported filthy, unlivable conditions in their facilities.
Some toilets are reportedly clogged and nonfunctional. Trash is said to be piling up. Bad smells allegedly waft around parts of the building. Some workers have been reduced to bringing in their own toilet paper, a claim also reported by The New York Times shortly after Christmas — though, in that instance, it impacted the workers in California. In short, the situation stinks. Whether or not Elon Musk is on his way out as Twitter CEO, he’s still responsible for setting the health policy for the company under his direction.
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Lawanda Wrona