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Linda Yaccarino is entering her second month as Twitter’s CEO under Elon Musk’s ownership.
She is trying to boost morale as staff has feared for their jobs while working long hours.
Recent “Tea Time” events were the first such gatherings among staff since Musk took over last year.
Linda Yaccarino is making an effort to get to know some of her new Twitter staff.
The Twitter CEO, who started in early June after being handpicked by owner Elon Musk, has hosted two gatherings with Twitter workers, according to people familiar with the events. Dubbed “Tea Time,” the events were billed as casual all-hands meetings and occurred only in-person. This past week Yaccarino hosted one Tea Time in Twitter’s New York City office after hosting the first a few weeks ago in the San Francisco office.
Twitter is Yaccarino’s first CEO role. Prior she was a top executive at NBCUniversal, running the conglomerate’s large advertising business. Advertising is her main purview at Twitter (although she could not work on deals for her first few weeks as CEO due to a non-compete with NBCU), while Musk remains in charge of engineering, tech, and product.
Still, Yaccarino is starting to make her presence felt, bringing her own style of leadership to Twitter. Her Tea Time gatherings are, in part, an effort to motivate Twitter’s employees to want to come into the office. Musk and his management team at Twitter are struggling to get the company’s remaining workers to return to the office full-time, as Insider reported.
Where Musk has for months been using a “culture of fear” and threats to people’s employment, often while they work 80+ hours a week, Yaccarino is trying to cultivate a sense of camaraderie among people, and rebuilding a “team” culture, one of the people familiar said. Morale at Twitter has been decimated under Musk, who in seven months of ownership has laid off or fired 90% of Twitter’s workforce and continues to fire people monthly, seemingly at random, one of the people familiar with the company said.
Tea Time may not have everyone rushing back to the office, but one of the people familiar with the gathering in San Francisco said it was casual, with an “upbeat” tone, and among the first such group activities at Twitter since Musk took over. Prior to Musk’s ownership, Twitter would host group outings and meals often. The company would also host an annual “OneTeam” corporate retreat for the entire company, last year planning to go to Disneyland. That trip was ultimately canceled amid Musk’s takeover.
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