Twitter employees react to Elon Musk's $44 billion bid

A sign for Twitter is seen at the company's headquarters in San Francisco.

Reuters -- Some Twitter employees were engaged in a company-wide planning process for the next year when their phones began buzzing with news that Elon Musk had reversed course in his on-again $44 billion bid to buy the company.

One employee described a brief pause in a meeting to note the news, then continued with their discussions.

"I think everyone is used to the drama," said the person. We're just along for the ride. The news of Musk's plan to return to his original offer greeted a sense of deja vu, three company sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the deal, despite the fact that the deal has left employees used to uncertainty.

Since the world's richest person disclosed in April that he had acquired a stake in the social media platform, Musk has refused a seat on Twitter's board, launching a bid to take the company private and trying to back out of the deal altogether.

One employee told Reuters that the social media company is only pursuing half of the projects it normally would due to uncertainty about how many employees will leave, and to make sure it can deliver on its commitments.

Many people blew off steam on the platform they run, tweeting about their confusion and perceived futility about planning for the future, when Musk is expected to call for seismic shifts in how Twitter works.

All of the frazzled nerves, all of the uncertainty, all of the back and forth, people I care about struggling and anxious, was tweeted by JP Doherty, an engineering manager at Twitter.

We just come back to where it started, maybe. Multiple staffers posted a meme showing a paper labeled 2023 Planning, with a cartoon character exclaiming woah and then saying this is worthless. Another meme popular with Twitter employees showed characters from the cartoon show SpongeBob SquarePants with one labeled Elon and the other named Jack, for Twitter's founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, who publicly supported Musk's bid.

The two stood smiling as buildings around them burned. We did it Elon! "We saved Twitter," the caption said.

Some employees in Twitter's internal Slack channel lamented they had sold some Twitter shares the day before Musk's return to the deal prompted the stock to surge more than 22%, according to a source.

After so much uncertainty, others expressed doubts that Musk would ever make good on his offer.

Wouldn't be surprised if it's a late tactic to get more time for trial discovery and he'll back out after a month or something, wrote one employee on Slack.