Elon Musk blocks Twitter employees’ access to work accounts for not checking emails over weekend

A vast chunk of Twitter employees found that they were unable to log in to their work systems on Monday. The reason behind this, those employees say, was that they did not check their work emails over the weekend.

Elon Musk sent out an email on Friday evening, warning Twitter employees, that if they were found speaking to the press and leaking confidential information, will not only be terminated but also sued. Musk also sent a refreshed NDA or non-disclosure agreement for all employees to sign.

The thing is, that Musk had sent that email after the official work hours when a majority of the employees had logged off from their work for the weekend. Employees had until 5 p.m. PT on Saturday to sign a pledge agreeing not to leak and to abide by non-disclosure agreements they signed when they joined the company, according to the email that Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer obtained.

Twitter then sent another email about the pledge to its workforce, Platformer reported. The company requested staff to send an email to a certain team, confirming their decision to remain loyal to their non-disclosure agreements, the report said. The email said employees had until December 15 to respond.

Some of the employees did not respond to the email, because they did not check their emails over the weekend, as per a report by the Platformer. These employees discovered on Monday they had been cut off because they were unable to access company systems, the report said.

More than 100 Twitter employees were deactivated from Slack by Sunday afternoon, according to Platformer’s report. It was unclear whether all of the 100 staff failed to check their emails at the weekend, or whether some simply refused to sign the pledge.

Musk hasn’t been happy about the numerous leaked emails and memos that have found their way to the press since he took over. He particularly wasn’t very happy when authorities in San Francisco visited Twitter’s office to inspect the working conditions there, after reports came out that Musk had turned several rooms at the Twitter HQ into bedrooms so that employees working on critical and time-sensitive projects can spend most of their time at work.