Twitter employees demand Elon Musk respect their ‘political beliefs’

In an open letter to Elon Musk Tuesday, Twitter employees wrote a list of demands they’re making of their new employer come Friday. 

The letter begins with the employees claiming they “believe the public conversation is in jeopardy” and expressing their fear about Musk’s plans to fire 75% of Twitter’s workforce, trimming the number of employees from 7,500 down to 2,000. 

“Elon Musk’s plan to lay off 75% of Twitter workers will hurt Twitter’s ability to serve the public conversation,” said the draft of the letter according to Time. “A threat of this magnitude is reckless, undermines our users’ and customers’ trust in our platform, and is a transparent act of worker intimidation.” 

The concern about “serving the public conversation” and “users' and customers’ trust in our platform” comes months after Twitter Chief Engineer Siru Murugesan admitted that “Twitter does not believe in free speech,” adding that “we’re actually censoring the Right, not the Left.” 

“We’re commie as f*ck,” Murugesan added. 

In the letter to Musk, the employees cited their allegiance to “the public conversation” for a third time. 

“We, the workers at Twitter, will not be intimidated. We recommit to supporting the communities, organizations, and businesses who rely on Twitter. We will not stop serving the public conversation.” 

“We call on Twitter management and Elon Musk to cease these negligent layoff threats,” the employees demanded. “As workers, we deserve concrete commitments so we can continue to preserve the integrity of our platform.” 

They then made a list of demands, such as “preserving the headcount” and another labeled “Safety” in which they insist Musk not discriminate against them for disability or political beliefs, among others. 

“We demand that leadership does not discriminate against workers on the basis of their race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or political beliefs." 

The demand also comes months after another Twitter executive mocked Musk for his autism, which the billionaire revealed only last year. 

“He has Asperger’s,” Twitter Lead Client Partner Alex Martinez said on hidden camera. “So he’s ‘special'. I’m like, ‘You’re … special needs. You’re literally special needs.'" 

Martinez went on to confirm that Twitter has no interest in free speech.  

“The rest of us who have been here believe in something that’s good for the planet and not just to give people free speech,” Martinez says.  

He then seemed to suggest that people are not intelligent enough to make their own decisions, which is where people like him come in.  

“The rest of us who have been here believe in something that’s good for the planet and not just to give people free speech,” Martinez said. “It’s gonna be hard for [Musk] to be like, ‘Uh, because people should be able to make their own decisions.' It’s like people don’t know how to make a rational decision if you don’t put out correct things that are supposed to be out in the public.”  

But not only is Martinez – and apparently his employer – not committed to free speech, they are unapologetically committed to censorship.  

“As an advertiser, as my business what I do every day and why I go out is like, we want [Twitter] to be as fair and transparent and accurate as possible and if that means there’s a level of censorship to make it correct, quote unquote. Again, and what does correct mean? I guess like, it just kind of goes into the idea of, like, what is correct?” the executive said, intimating that the definition of “correct” is what Twitter employees decide it is.