Twitter chief Elon Musk issued a staff-level ultimatum Tuesday night: Either stick to Twitter 2.0’s new “hardcore culture” or leave with a three-month severance. Employees have until 5 p.m. ET on Thursday to opt in or not, according to the Send the caught email to employees As first reported by The Washington Post.

In some ways, Musk’s ultimatum is the clearest expression yet of what he expects from Twitter’s remaining workforce since taking over the company on Oct. 28. “This will mean working long hours at a high intensity,” Musk said in the email.

Although it’s clear that Musk intends to force a massive change in Twitter’s culture, what’s less clear is how much collateral damage his actions will do to the company in the long run.

This latest move comes after Musk sowed weeks of uncertainty and fear among the ranks of Twitter. See employees as Musk Lay off thousands of their colleagues At the beginning of November. Then the exodus continued with more managers and employees resigning each day and the ax continued to fall on anyone who spoke out against Musk’s new regime, publicly or, as it is said, on internal channels.

since musk He took control of the companyHe quickly enacted controversial changes, including ending Twitter’s work-from-home policy, introducing a new paid verification subscription feature and overhauling the way the platform moderates content.

On Monday, Musk It seems to be shooting Via a tweet by a software engineer who disagreed with him on Twitter about why the app is so slow on Android. He has fired nearly two dozen employees who pushed against him privately or publicly, and ordered his team to comb through the internal chats and tweets of employees, the The New York Times mentioned.

In a sarcastic response to a user who shared news of these fires, Musk chirp“I would like to apologize for expelling these geniuses. Their immense talent will undoubtedly be of great use elsewhere.”

he insulted Another former employee who appeared to have been fired for his social media posts replied, “A tragic case of an adult Turrett start.”

Company culture experts who have been watching the ordeal from afar say that although Musk intended to reshape Twitter’s culture, his actions will come at a cost — at least in the short term.

“we [as CEOs] “We want people who are connected to the mission, who think about the future and who want to drive it forward,” said Casey Cunningham, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based leadership and professional development firm Xinnix.

Meanwhile, she said, the way Musk has fired Twitter employees and publicly mocked her is not productive for the company.

“I would warn any CEO against publicly embarrassing or mocking employees who are leaving,” Cunningham said. “The truth is, you might need them one day.”

In fact, Twitter has already reached dozens of laid-off workers and He asked them to come back for work. This could be a difficult question, some experts say, given the culture Musk places in the company.

“Elon decides what kind of culture he wants and creates it,” said Logan Mallory, vice president of marketing at Motivosity, an employee engagement platform in Lehi, Utah. The firings “will push a lot of people away and attract other types of talent to him and Twitter. It’s hard to rehire, it’s hard to keep talent that’s still there, and you’ll lose clients.”

Musk’s moves have apparently shaken up a large chunk of Twitter’s remaining employees, if LinkedIn is any indication. Of the roughly 7,900 people who list Twitter as their current employer on LinkedIn, 3,300 have “open for work” displayed on their profiles, said Andrew Esguera, Los Angeles area director for staffing agency Coda Search & Staffing, though that number may include recent laid-off workers.

Esguerra said the tough work environment may deter top-tier engineers who are looking for comfortable jobs with good benefits, such as the ability to work from home. However, the state of the tech job market — given recent mass layoffs at Meta, Amazon, and other companies — may make it difficult for employees to be very selective about their job choices right now.

At the same time, other industry observers argue that some culture shocks were to be expected on Twitter and this is simply Musk’s way of hitting the initial “reset” button. As such, they say the collateral damage will not be permanent.

Musk’s email shows the kind of Twitter he’s trying to build with giving employees a way out, said Chris Rice, a partner at the staffing office at Riviera Partners in Boston.

“He will build a high-performance core team that believes in his vision,” Rice said. “I think that… once they get to the point where the core product is moving forward in Elon’s vision, I imagine we’ll start to see things to increase the culture and the ability to retain the best talent start to come into play.”

Rice noted that Musk has had no problem hiring talent for his other companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX, which he said employ “the best minds in the industry.”

Mallory said Musk’s transparency can attract “the part of the talent pool that can find success in pressured environments” and seek a meritocracy where performance is most rewarded.

“While the culture isn’t for everyone, there is a group that wants high work, high performance, and high reward, and they won’t shy away from the culture Elon creates,” Mallory said.

despite of His track record as a toxic bossMusk still benefits from the skepticism of many, based on his reputation and track record. There are still plenty of people who are drawn to Musk’s image as a “free-thinking visionary” and industry disrupter, said Eric Schaeffer, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and expert on reputation and crisis management.

“Elon Musk has his own brand and leadership style that is omnipresent and accepted by those within his organizations,” Schaefer said. “Those who know Elon Musk’s style clearly understand what they’re getting into.”