New owner Elon Musk has reportedly given Twitter workers an ultimatum: sign up for “long hours at high intensity” or quit the struggling social media firm.

Nearly half (42%) of respondents in a Blind poll, which authenticates users via their work emails and facilitates anonymous information sharing, selected “Taking exit option, I’m free!”

Seven percent of those polled said they “clicked yes to remain, I’m hardcore,” while a quarter said they had stayed “reluctantly.”

One current employee and one former employee in contact with Twitter coworkers said that Musk was meeting with several senior employees to attempt to encourage them to remain.

It’s unknown how many workers have stayed, but these figures underscore the unwillingness of some employees to stick around at a business where Musk has hastily fired half the workforce, including senior management, and is brutally transforming the culture to stress long hours and an intensive pace.

According to two independent sources, the firm has informed its staff that it would be closing its doors and removing badge access until Monday. According to one reliable source, security guards started evicting workers from the building on Thursday night.

Musk said late Thursday night on Twitter that he was unconcerned about departures since “the finest people are staying.”

Despite a deluge of resignations, the company’s billionaire owner boasted that Twitter’s popularity had reached an all-time high.

His tweet said, “And we just achieved another all time high in Twitter use…” without more explanation.

Twitter, which has recently lost numerous members of its communication staff, declined to comment.

Because of the departures, concerns have been raised regarding the platform’s continued viability, since several engineers have left who were responsible for addressing problems and avoiding service interruptions.

According to one person familiar with the situation, the public version of Twitter was at danger of breaking throughout the night after the version used by staff started slowing down on Thursday evening.

They stated, “If it does break, there is no one left to repair things in many locations,” but they would not provide their name for fear of retaliation.

Downdetector, a service that monitors website and app downtime, reported a significant increase in complaints of Twitter outages on Thursday evening, from less than 50 to over 350.

According to the ex-employee, roughly forty Twitter employees announced their resignation in a private Signal session with around fifty of them.

Someone familiar with the Twitter workers’ secret Slack group also said that about 360 individuals had joined a new channel labeled “voluntary-layoff.”

Similarly, a Blind survey asked respondents to speculate on the number of Twitter users who may quit depending on the site’s overall impression. At least half of those polled expected at least that many workers to quit.

On Thursday, Twitter and its internal chatrooms were swamped with blue hearts and salute emojis as staff bid their farewell for the second time in two weeks.

More than a dozen Twitter workers in the United States and Europe had publicly announced their resignations by 6 p.m. Eastern, with Reuters reviewing the postings.

Musk contacted Twitter staff early on Wednesday, stating, “Going ahead, to develop a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and prosper in a more competitive market, we will need to be incredibly rigorous.”

Workers were encouraged to respond with a “yes” if they want to remain employed by the company. Employees who did not react by Thursday at 5 p.m. Eastern Time would be assumed to have resigned and be eligible for a severance payment, according to the email.

Employees frantically scurried to find out next steps as the deadline loomed.

One departing Twitter employee told Reuters that a small crew had agreed to quit the firm together.

Tess Rinearson, who was in charge of assembling Twitter’s cryptocurrency team, was one notable departure. On Twitter, Rinearson posted a blue heart and a salute emoji.

Several workers who were let go on Thursday included references to being “softcore engineers” or “ex-hardcore engineers” in their Twitter profiles, an apparent jibe at Musk’s request for staff to be “hardcore.”

Musk made light of the resignations by tweeting a joke.

He questioned how one could “earn a tiny fortune” on social media. I would recommend going big at first.