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Topics: Elon Musk, News, US News, Twitter, Social Media, Celebrity, Technology
Jake Massey
Topics: Elon Musk, News, US News, Twitter, Social Media, Celebrity, Technology
Elon Musk has bodyguards that follow him wherever he goes at Twitter's headquarters, an employee has claimed.
The billionaire acquired the social media platform for $44 billion in October and wasted no time in bringing in a raft of controversial changes.
More than half of the company's workforce have been sacked or chosen to resign since Musk took charge, and unsurprisingly, this has resulted in chaos, according to an engineer who spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity.
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"For someone on the inside, it's like a building where all the pieces are on fire," he said.
"When you look at it from the outside the façade looks fine, but I can see that nothing is working. All the plumbing is broken, all the faucets, everything.
"A totally new person, without the expertise, is doing what used to be done by more than 20 people. That leaves room for much more risk, many more possibilities of things that can go wrong.
"There are so many things broken and there's nobody taking care of it, that you see this inconsistent behaviour."
The engineer went on to say that the problems stem from Musk's apparent lack of faith in his new employees - which he said is evidenced by the security presence he keeps by his side at all times.
"Wherever he goes in the office, there are at least two bodyguards - very bulky, tall, Hollywood movie-[style] bodyguards," he claimed. "Even when [he goes] to the restroom."
Elsewhere in the BBC investigation, insiders revealed that they could not protect users from trolls under Musk.
Lisa Jennings Young, Twitter's former head of content design, specialised in developing safety features that shielded users from abuse on the platform; however, she said the entire team was laid off, with Lisa ultimately resigning in November.
"It was not at all perfect. But we were trying, and we were making things better all the time," she told the BBC.
Twitter did not respond to the BBC's requests for comment - though this probably came as no surprise to the BBC, given that the broadcaster were told by Twitter insiders that everyone on the communications team had also been sacked or resigned.
However, in typical fashion, Musk did respond to the investigation once it had been published - in a tweet, of course.
Sharing an image of the article, with a headline that read 'Twitter can't protect you from trolls any more, insiders say', Musk wrote: "Sorry for turning Twitter from nurturing paradise into place that has … trolls."
Responding to a woman who said that 'trolls are half the fun of being on here', he added: "True, have to admit trolls are kinda fun."
UNILAD has reached out to Twitter for comment.