Elon Musk has pulled more than 50 Tesla employees into his Twitter takeover

New Twitter proprietor Elon Musk has pulled much than 50 of his trusted Tesla employees, mostly bundle engineers from the Autopilot team, into his Twitter takeover, CNBC has learned.

Musk, who is CEO of automaker Tesla and re-usable rocket shaper SpaceX, completed the $44 cardinal acquisition of Twitter connected Oct. 28 and made his people determination immediately. He fired the company's CEO, CFO, argumentation and ineligible squad leaders close away, and has besides dissolved Twitter's committee of directors.

According to interior records viewed by CNBC, employees from Musk's different companies are present authorized to enactment astatine Twitter, including much than 50 from Tesla, 2 from the Boring Company (which is gathering underground tunnels) and 1 from Neuralink (which is processing a brain-computer interface).

Some of Musk's friends, advisors and backers, including the caput of his household bureau Jared Birchall, angel capitalist Jason Calacanis, and founding PayPal COO and task capitalist David Sacks, are besides involved. So are 2 radical who stock Musk's past name, James and Andrew Musk, who person worked astatine Palantir and Neuralink respectively.

Among the dozens who Elon Musk enlisted specifically from Tesla are: Director of Software Development Ashok Elluswamy, Director of Autopilot and TeslaBot Engineering Milan Kovac, Senior Director of Software Engineering Maha Virduhagiri, a Senior Staff Technical Program Manager Pete Scheutzow, and Jake Nocon, who is portion of Tesla's surveillance unit, arsenic a elder manager of information intelligence.

Nocon antecedently worked for Uber and Nisos, a information institution that had a multi-million dollar declaration with Tesla to place insider threats, and show critics of the company.

At Twitter, Musk is counting connected his lieutenants and loyalists to determine who and what to chopped oregon support astatine the societal network.

He is besides pressing them to larn everything they tin astir Twitter arsenic rapidly arsenic possible, from root codification to contented moderation and information privateness requirements, truthful helium tin redesign the platform.

Musk has billed himself arsenic a escaped code absolutist, but has to equilibrium his wishes with laws and concern realities. He said successful an unfastened missive to advertisers past week arsenic helium was taking implicit the company, "Twitter evidently cannot go a free-for-all hellscape, wherever thing tin beryllium said with nary consequences."

It is not instantly wide however Tesla employees are expected to divided their schedules betwixt the automaker and Twitter.

Typically, erstwhile Tesla employees enactment for different Elon Musk ventures, usually SpaceX oregon the Boring Company, they tin get paid by the different task arsenic a consultant. Some of Musk's employees person full-time roles astatine much than 1 of his businesses. For example, Tesla Vice President of Materials Charlie Kuehmann, is also concurrently a Vice President astatine SpaceX.

Other times, 2 Tesla employees told CNBC, Tesla workers are pressured to assistance with projects astatine his different companies for nary further wage due to the fact that it's bully for their careers, oregon due to the fact that the enactment is seen arsenic helping with a related enactment transaction oregon project.

Tesla is facing much superior scrutiny than ever earlier astir the exertion built and maintained by its Autopilot team, namely its operator assistance systems, which are marketed arsenic Autopilot, FSD and FSD Beta.

The SEC, DOJ and California DMV are each investigating whether Tesla oregon Musk violated laws and misled consumers astir Tesla's operator assistance systems, which are inactive successful improvement and bash not marque the company's cars self-driving.

Meanwhile, the national conveyance information authority, NHTSA, continues to analyse whether Tesla operator assistance systems whitethorn person contained defects that contributed to oregon caused collisions. The mode that Tesla marketed these systems connected societal media, including Twitter, is portion of the scope of astatine slightest 1 NHTSA investigation.

Several Twitter employees told CNBC implicit the play that Tesla employees present astatine Twitter person been progressive successful codification reappraisal astatine the societal network, adjacent though their skills from moving connected Autopilot and different Tesla bundle and hardware bash not straight overlap with the languages and systems utilized to physique and support the societal network. These employees asked not to beryllium named due to the fact that they're not authorized to speech to the property astir interior matters, and feared retaliation.

For example, astir engineers successful automotive companies, adjacent the tech-forward Tesla, bash not person acquisition designing and operating hunt engines and platforms that are broadly accessible to the public.

Twitter has aggregate codification bases with millions of lines of codification successful each, and myriad 10- oregon adjacent 100-query per 2nd (QPS) systems underpinning it. At Tesla, Python is 1 of the preferred scripting languages, and astatine Twitter programmers person utilized Scala extensively.

Twitter besides has much vulnerability to planetary regulations astir hatred code and information privacy, for example, peculiarly the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.

Twitter employees who were determination earlier Musk took implicit person been asked to amusement his teams each mode of method documentation, to warrant their enactment and their teams' work, and to explicate their worth wrong the company. The menace of dismissal looms if they bash not impress.

The employees said they are disquieted astir being fired without origin oregon warning, alternatively than laid disconnected with severance. Some are disquieted that they volition not beryllium capable to reap the rewards of banal options that are scheduled to vest successful the archetypal week of November, according to documentation viewed by CNBC.

Meanwhile, the Twitter employees said they person not received circumstantial plans from Musk and his squad yet, and are mostly successful the acheronian astir imaginable headcount cuts wrong their groups, budgets and semipermanent strategies.

Musk has acceptable astir intolerable deadlines for immoderate to do-list items, however.

One contiguous task is to redesign the company's subscription software, dubbed Twitter Blue, and the company's verification strategy (known sometimes arsenic "blue checks" for the mode they are denoted connected the service). Employees accidental Musk wants that enactment done by the archetypal week of November. The Verge antecedently reported that Musk wants to complaint $20 per idiosyncratic per month, and to lone springiness verification marks to the accounts of users who are paid subscribers, and would region verification from accounts who bash not wage for Twitter Blue.

Managers astatine Twitter person instructed immoderate employees to enactment 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week, successful bid to deed Musk's assertive deadlines according to interior communications. The sprint orders person travel without immoderate treatment astir overtime wage oregon comp time, oregon astir occupation security. Task completion by the aboriginal November deadline is seen arsenic a make-or-break substance for their careers astatine Twitter.

In an ambiance of fearfulness and distrust, galore Twitter employees person stopped communicating with each different connected interior systems astir workplace issues. Some of Twitter's Slack channels person gone astir silent, aggregate employees told CNBC.

Meanwhile, Musk and his interior ellipse person been plumbing archived messages successful the systems, ostensibly looking for radical to occurrence and budgets oregon projects to slash.

On Sunday night, successful a show of his unfettered entree to interior accusation astatine the company, CEO Elon Musk (who calls himself Chief Twit but is officially Chief Executive Officer and sole director) posted a screenshot to his 112 cardinal listed followers connected Twitter.

The screenshot depicted comments made by Twitter's caput of information and integrity, Yoel Roth, successful May 2022. At the time, Musk was trying to get retired of his statement to bargain Twitter for $54.20 per share.

In court, and successful public, Musk had vociferously accused Twitter of faking metrics, specifically of downplaying the magnitude of spam, fake accounts and harmful bots that beryllium connected the platform.

In the interior that messages Musk made public, Roth wrote disparagingly of a idiosyncratic progressive with the concern named Amir, and besides remarked, that if Amir continued to "BS" him oregon others astir objectives and cardinal results, Twitter would beryllium "literally doing what Elon is accusing america of doing."

Musk alleged successful a tweet that, "Wachtell & Twitter committee deliberately hid this grounds from the court." He besides appeared to endanger further ineligible action, writing: "Stay tuned, much to come..."

Representatives for Twitter, Tesla and the instrumentality steadfast Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz person not yet responded to requests for comment.