Elon Musk sent a midnight email telling Twitter staff to commit to an 'extremely hardcore' work schedule — or get laid off with 3 months' severance

• Elon Musk sent an ultimatum to all Twitter staff in a midnight email.
• Staff have been given 40 hours to agree to "extremely hardcore" work, or be laid-off.

Elon Musk told Twitter staff in a late-night email they must commit to his "extremely hardcore" vision for the company or they will be laid-off.

The email, which Insider has seen, was sent at midnight Wednesday California time. It told staff they need to work "long hours at a high intensity" in order to "build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0."

All employees have to agree to this new workflow by 5:00 p.m. ET Thursday — around 40 hours after the email was sent — or they will be fired and given three months of severance, Musk's message said. His subject line was: "A fork in the road."

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"If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below," the email read, directing employees to a Google form.

Musk added that "only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade," and engineering will be the primary focus. "Those writing great code will constitute the majority of our team and have the greatest sway," he continued.

The Washington Post first reported on the email, which you can read in full here.

Last week, Musk told Twitter employees to expect 80-hour work weeks and fewer office perks, like free lunches.

The company then fired multiple engineers this week after they criticized Musk on Twitter. According to Platformer's Casey Newton, around 20 staff were fired after criticizing the new owner in internal Slack channels.

According to the New York Times, Musk had ordered his team to go through employee's messages and social media to make a list of unruly employees. The staff were then laid-off by email at 1:30 a.m.

The world's richest person has previously described himself as a "free speech absolutist" – which has caused some concern among Twitter's advertising partners over what content could appear on the platform.

One former worker told Insider's Kali Hays: "It's free speech unless it's about him."

Musk later posted a picture of himself meeting with "Ligma and Johnson," a pair of pranksters who impersonated laid-off Twitter employees last month and successfully tricked some news outlets. "Firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes," Musk joked.

Twitter laid off around 50% of its 7,500 staff on November 4, shortly after Musk completed his takeover. Some employees were later asked to come back, but it now looks like Twitter's workforce will suffer even more losses.