Many employees who have worked in large companies know that the actual basic salary only accounts for a small part of the high salary given by the company, while long-term rewards such as stock and option incentives are often the bulk of their income. Therefore, when a company mentions that there will be stock grants, it is one of the most tempting conditions for employees.

However, for employees of the well-known social media X (formerly Twitter), when Elon Musk made such a promise, they seemed to have learned to look at this matter with skepticism in the process of leaders constantly "drawing cakes" and "setting thresholds".

Recently, according to foreign media The Verge, Musk, a technology billionaire, sent an email to X employees overnight to inform them that the long-awaited stock grant and incentive plan has been settled. However, not everyone can get it directly, but stock options need to be granted in the future based on the influence of employees on the company. In short, it depends on performance.

Employees are required to submit a one-page document report detailing their contributions to the company, so that leaders can understand the importance of this employee to the company at a glance and tell Musk why they are valuable employees in order to own stocks.

The unconventional management style of this technology company also surprised many people. Some people frankly said:

Employees who need to prove their value in writing are usually dispensable in the eyes of their bosses;

Others joked:

• Writing a one-page document report is actually simple. Set the font to 12pt, double line spacing, and write:

• I didn't make the company lose $1 billion

• I didn't make the company lose $2 billion

• I didn't make the company lose $3 billion

After the promotion was delayed for no reason, employees were asked to write performance to explain their value

It is reported that this requirement was made against the background of the unwarranted delay of the promotion process of employees within X.

In fact, since Musk took over Twitter (now renamed X) in October 2022, not only its internal employees, but also the outside world have witnessed his drastic reforms and the earth-shaking changes in the social media giant.

At first, the company carried out multiple rounds of layoffs called "Thanos-style", involving various positions such as engineers, product managers, data scientists and sales. At the same time, the platform itself has also undergone major changes, including the introduction of the Grok big model.

Later, in order to better manage and deal with external disputes and Tesla shareholders' criticism of Musk's "multitasking", Musk announced his resignation as Twitter CEO and would transition to Twitter's executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO) to oversee products, software and system administrators. He then hired Linda Yaccarino, chairman of NBCU's global advertising and partnerships, who has been working in advertising sales for many years, as Twitter CEO. The latter officially took office on June 5, 2023.

Little did they know that one year later, X is still full of uncertainty.

In June of this year, some media reported that the promotion process of X's internal employees was delayed for no reason, causing widespread concern.

Later, at a general staff meeting, employees wanted to know about the company's performance evaluation. However, as the CEO, Yaccarino, as the leader of this meeting, not only did not mention X's advertising business performance, but encouraged employees to promote Musk's new startup x.AI.

To make matters worse, according to internal sources, X's sales team is expected to miss revenue targets this quarter, and the company has fired "a small number" of employees. In addition, Musk's key deputy, The Boring Company CEO Steve Davis, spent several weeks reviewing the financial situation at X headquarters in San Francisco. Some employees described Davis as "the Grim Reaper who only appears for bad things", which exacerbated the employees' uneasiness.

In addition, when it comes to the stock rewards that Musk once promised, two internal employees responded with a sneer, according to Fortune. Some employees also said that writing performance has actually been going on for a year, and they send emails to their managers every week and month to describe their work and positive impact on X. However, some supervisors are too lazy to enforce this rule, but some managers will.

"No one knows where these emails end up," said a source.

X under the control of workaholic Musk: employees have to accept high-intensity work

Some employees do not expect stock grants to be realized. Five months ago, X employees were told that they would receive additional stock grants after the annual performance evaluation period. But both current employees said the gifts have not yet been fulfilled.

Foreign media also pointed out directly that as the X company continues to struggle under the leadership of Elon Musk, employees have been preparing for more layoffs.

Now, with Musk's latest email, many employees can't tell whether it makes sense to write a document to explain their value. However, considering Musk's past attitude, it seems not surprising that he can put forward this prerequisite for granting stock options, although it is puzzling.

You know, Musk not only needs to be in charge of the social media platform X and the electric car company Tesla on a daily basis, but also runs the rocket and satellite Internet manufacturer SpaceX, the biological and physical interaction research Neuralink, the underground transportation track Boring Company, and the newly established artificial intelligence startup xAI. With multiple positions, Musk is also a veritable "workaholic."

In November 2022, at the 29th Barron's Investment Annual Conference, Musk revealed: "My workload has increased from 78 hours a week to 120 hours a week..."

In addition, he also shared his work and rest habits, usually choosing to go to bed around 3 am and wake up around 9 am every morning...

Even after Musk acquired Twitter, due to his tight schedule, he often slept in the Twitter headquarters office.

Under this, Musk also hopes that all employees can work hard and intensively. He once encouraged employees to sleep in the company, and even said that sleeping in the office is his work attitude, rather than "lying on a tropical island and drinking cocktails leisurely."

In addition, as previously reported, he also issued a 24-hour "ultimatum" email to all Twitter employees in 2022, requiring the remaining Twitter employees to make a choice between two options: either accept high-intensity work in the future or leave, and of course leave the company to receive three months of severance pay.

Musk wrote in the email at the time: "Looking ahead, in order to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we need to work extremely hard. This means long hours and high intensity. Only outstanding performance can pass."

Internal employees have resisted, but failed

Under Musk's high-pressure management, it's not that no employees have pointed out problems, but they just failed.

Esther Crawford, the former head of Twitter Blue subscription service, founded the screen sharing application Squad, which was later acquired by Twitter and joined the company.

In November 2022, when Twitter was officially acquired by Musk and entered the early stage of rapid reform, as the head of the payment department, someone took a photo of Esther Crawford lying on the floor in a sleeping bag with an eye mask at Twitter headquarters. She forwarded and shared, "When your team is pushing deadlines around the clock, sometimes you sleep wherever you work."

This photo quickly spread on the Internet and caused a lot of controversy. Although the photo was later proven to be staged, Crawford and his team were working long hours and under great pressure.

Behind the scenes, the Twitter executive was also worried that her staff would struggle under the pressure of Musk's demands and tight deadlines, according to a new report from the New York Times that revealed the story behind the launch of the new Twitter Blue subscription service.

Twitter Blue was originally used to verify easily impersonated accounts such as celebrities and government agencies, and provided advanced features such as the ability to edit tweets. After Musk took over, he required Twitter Blue to be transformed into a service that charges $8 per month to obtain blue check certification.

Three sources familiar with Crawford's conversation with Musk revealed that Twitter executives were asked to restart Blue within 10 days.

The New York Times said that this high-intensity work rhythm caused great pressure on team members, so much so that some employees who developed the Blue subscription service began to monitor their soaring heart rates on Apple Watch and shared the data with colleagues as a light-hearted joke.

When reporting to Musk later, Crawford once told her new boss that she didn't want to push her team into a desperate situation, and even said frankly: "I don't want the team to die because of this."

"Well, push them to their death," Musk said with a smile.

In such a stressful environment, even if she worked hard, Esther Crawford became one of the laid-off employees in March last year.

As for why she was fired, the reason is still unknown. However, when she left, Crawford left a few words on Twitter, which are also thought-provoking:

Watching me go all out on Twitter 2.0, the worst idea you might have is that my optimism or hard work is a mistake. Those who laugh and ridicule must be on the sidelines, not in the arena. I am deeply proud of the team's construction in so many doubts and chaos.

If you can't bear the pressure of being completely defeated in public, then be sure to avoid all leadership positions and avoid taking any risks. Don't build or subvert anything. Stay small and hidden, and most importantly, stay silent and afraid of what others think.

Fortunately, in April this year, Crawford announced that she had joined Meta and appreciated the vision and execution of Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg. At Meta, she continued to serve as director of product management, which is similar to her role at Twitter.

Written at the end

For a company, if the compensation and treatment match the workload, there may be fewer complaints. But many employees do not think that granting X stock is a windfall. Foreign media Fortune reported that one of the employees said that given X's business is in trouble, mainly due to a sharp decline in advertising revenue, restricted stock units (RSUs) are "basically worthless."

Under Musk's leadership, X has only issued restricted stock (RSU) once, and only to a few employees. That stock was issued a year after Musk promised to issue it, and X's valuation was almost 60% lower than the price Musk paid for it. The stock is restricted. Employees must hold it for one year and can only sell it to approved external investors. A person familiar with the matter said that due to the troubled business of Company X, investors have limited interest in these stocks, so these shares are not worth much.

At the same time, due to the management model and the "iron-fisted layoffs" in the past, Company X and Musk have been involved in many legal disputes, which also makes people doubt and confuse the future development of this social media company.