Former Twitter executive tells people not to work at or advertise on site after Elon Musk takeover

Nobody should work at or advertise on Twitter after Elon Musk’s purchase of the company, according to a former executive.

The “toxic takeover” means that people and brands should stay away from the site, according to Katie Jacobs Stanton, its former vice president for global media.

Ms Stanton made the comments in the wake of an email, sent by Mr Musk to the remaining employees of the company, demanding that they commit to a new “hardcore” working setup or leave.

“In a million years, I never thought I would feel this, let alone Tweet this, but I would not recommend any person work at Twitter nor any brand advertise on Twitter given this toxic takeover,” Ms Stanton wrote on the site.

She quote tweeted a report about that email, in which Mr Musk had emailed about a “fork in the road”. In the email, he said that the site would need to become “extremely hardcore”, which would mean “working long hours at high intensity”.

Ms Stanton has repeatedly criticised Mr Musk’s running of the company in the wake of his takeover. She has previously criticised his crackdown on dissent in the company, as well as his alienation of many of the site’s advertisers, who have expressed fears about the content moderation and there aspects of the site.

“I’m not an expert, but firing and losing the people who are beloved by brands and advertisers is maybe not the best way to support a business 90% based on ads,” she wrote in one post earlier this month.

But the latest post was Ms Stanton’s strongest words yet about the ongoing changes happening at the site, where she worked between 2010 and 2016. She was the company’s vice president for international operations and then its vice president for global media.

Ms Stanton left the company six years ago, and now serves as a board member at a number of companies including Yahoo, and runs her own investment firm, Moxxie Ventures.