Elon Musk gives Twitter staff 'deadline to work hardcore or leave'

Elon Musk has given Twitter staff an ultimatum to sign an agreement by Thursday evening that they will work with “hardcore” intensity or otherwise leave the company.

Mr Musk, the Twitter chief executive, asked employees in an email if they wanted to stay with Twitter, and that “only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade”, Bloomberg and The Washington Post reported.

For Twitter to succeed, “we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Mr Musk said in the email.

Twitter will be more dominated by engineers going forward, and the social media platform is a “software and servers company” at its heart, Mr Musk reportedly said in the email.

Design and product management functions will “still be very important and report to me”, he said.

The message added that anyone who did not sign up would receive three months' severance pay.

Twitter has been going through a tumultuous period since Mr Musk's acquisition of the social media platform at the end of last month for $44 billion.

Thousands of staff were fired, as he said the company was losing $4 million per day.

Earlier this week, Mr Musk said that he had “too much on his plate”, as he also dealt with running Tesla and SpaceX.

“I'm not sure how many people would actually like to be me,” he said. “They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly.”

He said during a Tesla pay package trial in a Delaware court on Wednesday that he expected to reduce his time at Twitter, as “there's an initial burst of activity needed post-acquisition to reorganise the company”.

He then tweeted that he would continue to run Twitter “until it is in a strong place, which will take some time”.

Twitter co-founder and former chief executive Jack Dorsey said he would not accept a return to the company as chief executive.

When asked on Twitter if he would take on the position, he simply replied “nope”.

Mr Musk said during the trial in Delaware that most of his time for the past few weeks had been spent at Twitter, though he said the “fundamental organisational restructuring” would be completed by the end of next week.

Earlier this week, The New York Times reported that he was firing staff who were openly criticising him.

Mr Musk’s team ordered nearly two dozen employees who spoke out publicly and privately against him to be fired, the newspaper said.

They were told that their contracts had been terminated for “violating company policy”, the Times said.

Meanwhile, his mother, Maye Musk, reportedly said in a BBC documentary about her son that people should “stop being mean to him” and added that he “gets a lot of hate”.

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Mobile phone packages comparison

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Director: James Cameron

Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana

Rating: 4.5/5

West Asia Premiership

Dubai Hurricanes 58-10 Dubai Knights Eagles

Dubai Tigers 5-39 Bahrain

Jebel Ali Dragons 16-56 Abu Dhabi Harlequins

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Who's who in Yemen conflict

Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government

Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council

Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south

Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”