Former Twitter employee says working for Elon Musk was ‘hardest experience of her life’

A former employee of Twitter/X has spoken about the working conditions under Elon Musk, claiming that it was the ‘hardest experience of her life’.

The social media platform’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, resigned from the company in June, confirming the decision to Reuters.

Her decision to leave the company came after Musk doubled down on his stance on trans issues, confirming he would be lobbying legislators to “criminalise making severe, irreversible changes to children below the age of consent” through gender-affirming surgery, and that “nobody knows who they are as a child”.

Writing in June, Irwin said that it had become clear “there was no longer alignment” between her “nonnegotiable principles” and the policies of Twitter/X.

Now, Irwin has spoken further about her decision and criticised the “terrible” decisions made by Musk.

Irwin released a statement to NBC News, saying: “It absolutely was the hardest experience that I've gone through in my career.

Speaking about Musk’s decision making, Irwin said: “There's more emotion behind his decisions than I would have maybe expected before I met him.

“I think that contributes to some of the impulsiveness… I think there were a lot of situations in which I would have handled things very differently.”

Reflecting on Musk’s leadership, Irwin added: “There were things that I wouldn't have tweeted in the middle of the night, [and] there were certainly things that could have been stated better.”

It comes after Kanye West accused Musk of taking advantage of his clout in a bid to boost the “struggling” platform’s numbers.

West is used to causing outrage on Twitter/X, having been banned from the platform in the past.

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