Twitter employee seen sleeping on office floor as Elon Musk pushes tight deadlines
A photo of a Twitter manager sleeping on the floor at the company’s offices got posted on the social network as employees scramble to meet tight deadlines imposed by new owner Elon Musk.
Twitter’s director of product management Esther Crawford was photographed wrapped up in a sleeping bag — wedged between a table and some chairs in what looked like a conference room — with a sleep mask pulled over her eyes under the fluorescent lights of the office.
“When you need something from your boss at elon twitter,” Evan Jones, a product manager for Twitter Spaces, said in a tweet posted at 2:16 a.m. ET Wednesday.
Crawford retweeted the photo with the caption, “When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork.”
The photo emerged alongside reports that Musk’s team is pushing Twitter employees hard to implement his preferred changes to the platform under tight deadlines.
Insider obtained an internal message telling workers “the expectation is literally to work 24/7” to meet Musk’s deadline for an overhaul of Twitter’s user verification process. The report said workers fear they could lose their jobs if they’re unable to complete the project by the end of the week.
Musk infamously slept on the factory floor as Tesla initially struggled to meet its production targets.
Crawford followed up on the photo with a series of tweets after the post drew some alarmed responses on social media.
“Since some people are losing their minds I’ll explain: doing hard things requires sacrifice (time, energy, etc),” Crawford said. “I have teammates around the world who are putting in the effort to bring something new to life so it’s important to me to show up for them & keep the team unblocked.”
“I work with amazingly talented & ambitious people here at Twitter and this is not a normal moment in time,” Crawford continued. “We are less than 1wk into a massive business & cultural transition. People are giving it their all across all functions: product, design, eng, legal, finance, marketing, etc.”
“We are #OneTeam and we use the hashtag #LoveWhereYouWork to show it, which is why I retweeted with #SleepWhereYouWork — a cheeky nod to fellow Tweeps. We’ve been in the midst of a crazy public acquisition for months but we keep going & I’m so proud of our strength & resilience,” she added.
The Information reported this week that Crawford “appears to be rising in prominence” at Twitter since Musk took over the company.
Twitter, Crawford and Jones did not immediately return requests for comment.
The photo drew a series of sharp responses on Twitter from users who felt sleeping on the office floor was excessive.
“A manager who values you or your skills won’t make you #SleepWhereYouWork to keep your job,” TechCrunch editorial manager Walter Thompson replied.
“When you take pride in a glaring failure of management,” one user wrote.
