There's also no clarity on what the upside is "stock like spacex and tesla"... rockets are Long on investing and the future. Twitter isn't even close to on that time horizon. If I was asked to stay to build 2.0 I'd want to know what the plan was and how my equity compensation was going to work in real terms. Especially since months prior I would get equity and could sell it in immediate compensation and now I'm back to an early stage startup.
Even more materially, many of those employees are likely spending over their base on their lifestyle and investments. So say they were making $300k all told and they're now down to $150k base, If they were spending even near the base they've just massively changed their income trajectory even to the point of obvious insolvency. Eg "I can't afford this house anymore". I've talked to some people that are smart on investing and I've talked to others who say they're spending 67% post tax on their "lifestyle" of total comp which is insane to me. Stock moves any which way and you are eating into savings which likely also just dropped.
Anyone in that situation would be out like the rats.
They still have their equity grants that will vest each quarter as they would before. The difference is they are vesting a cash value equal to the price-per-share of when it was bought.
If you happen to be hitting your cliff soon, that is the only case you might be going down to base only.
I think that you are saying that if you had future vests that will turn into shares at the aquisition price ($53/share or somthing). But only your remaining outstanding vests exist.
I have no idea how far out twitter gave shares. Amazon does them to 3 years. So everyone who remains at twitter has some amount of time till they run out of all veests, depending on comp the latter vests may be big or small.
They all still go to base only and my point still stands tho they'd have till near when my final vests were coming up to tell me WTF my comp looked like.
Taking an $80k/year pay cut for a SWEII ($70k stock, $10k bonus - I'm assuming no bonuses for a while) is, well, that's a lot.
With no future stock or the ability to sell it... and there are certainly other places that pay at least as much as Twitter's base alone, there are options out there.
Even more materially, many of those employees are likely spending over their base on their lifestyle and investments. So say they were making $300k all told and they're now down to $150k base, If they were spending even near the base they've just massively changed their income trajectory even to the point of obvious insolvency. Eg "I can't afford this house anymore". I've talked to some people that are smart on investing and I've talked to others who say they're spending 67% post tax on their "lifestyle" of total comp which is insane to me. Stock moves any which way and you are eating into savings which likely also just dropped.
Anyone in that situation would be out like the rats.