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Elon Musk reportedly told Twitter employees on Nov. 21 that the company is hiring again following mass firings.

The billionaire CEO made the announcement during an all-hands meeting at Twitter after a few weeks of terminations that culled roughly two-thirds of Twitter's original 7,500 jobs -- preserving some 2,700 staff.

News about the meeting between Musk and employees was originally reported by The Verge.

People who can code favoured

Musk apparently said the company is now looking to hire for Twitter's engineering and sales roles, and employees are encouraged to make referrals.

Musk apparently made the announcement on the same day layoffs hit the company's sales and partnerships teams, Engadget reported.

The Verge reported as well that Musk had apparently said "people who are great at writing software are the highest priority", in terms of "critical hires".

Twitter has since lost almost all of its senior leadership since Musk took over.

Twitter recruiters are now said to be headhunting for staff for “Twitter 2.0 — an Elon company”.

Fielded questions from staff

Musk also fielded questions from staff for roughly 30 minutes during the meeting.

The Verge had obtained a partial recording of the meeting.

Monday’s all-hands meeting was the first time that Twitter’s employees heard from Musk.

It followed his call for those who opted to stay at Twitter to be part of the “extremely hardcore” cultural reset.

That day of reckoning to stay or leave led to roughly 1,000 resignations in the middle of November.

Analysis

Musk's plan to hire new staff to fill the vacated roles is not just about removing old employees.

It is about a cultural reset that cannot likely be achieved unless the company has removed a majority of those who had grown used to a certain way of working in Twitter.

With the self-selection process kicking in, those who have chosen to remain were already told to expect to work harder than before.

If Musk did not fire or force people to leave quickly, the attrition would likely still have occurred over a longer period of time, essentially prolonging the misgivings of those gutted.

Twitter's work culture has been open to scrutiny as employees there were wont to post about their average day at the company, which included showcasing their free meals and hanging out around the foosball table in between meetings and scheduling meetings.

Accusations that the Twitter workforce had become bloated and the company moved too slowly due to its open consultative process were rampant before Musk took over.

Musk's plan to successfully hire new people in the wake of an avalanche of negative press will also be testament to the competitiveness of a 16-year-old social media company among Silicon Valley start-ups and entrenched behemoths, as well as America's ability to constantly churn out and attract world-leading talents and provide white collar jobs for tech elites.

What else occurred at meeting

Musk also reportedly said there are “no plans” to move Twitter’s headquarters to Texas like he did with Tesla.

But he did not rule out a “dual-headquartered” Twitter that exists in California and Texas.

Musk also said moving to Texas would "play into the idea that Twitter has gone from being left-wing to right-wing".

He added: "It is a moderate-wing takeover of Twitter... to be the digital town square, we must represent people with a wide array of views even if we disagree with those views."

He did not address his firing of workers who publicly disagreed with him though.

Musk additionally announced during the meeting that Twitter might not be relaunching paid verification before this month ends -- initially to be launched by Nov. 29 -- until the website is confident that it can stop impersonation.

Holding off relaunch of Blue Verified until there is high confidence of stopping impersonation.

Will probably use different color check for organizations than individuals.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022

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