Why #RIPTwitter is trending while Elon Musk’s memes suggest the end is near

Twitter seemingly continues to orbit the drain under Elon Musk’s stewardship, and with the trending term #RIPTwitter, users are very concerned that the site may disappear.

The term started trending after hundreds of Twitter employees reportedly offered Musk their resignation by not signing the ultimatum he gave them. Musk had asked all of his remaining employees to join him in developing Twitter 2.0, which would have required long hours, or they could leave with three months’ severance pay.

According to internal news from The Verge, hundreds opted to leave the company and the scale of the layoffs suggests the platform was about to collapse.

The wave of layoffs has resulted in Musk closing Twitter offices through Monday, November 21. He informed his employees in an email, asking them to “please continue to comply with company policy by refraining from discussing confidential company information on social media with the press or elsewhere.”

Overnight, social media users using the hashtag #RIPTwitter anticipated the death of Twitter, while the names of competing social media sites Myspace, Tumblr and Mastodon also trended.

Musk himself paid tribute to the term by tweeting memes. “How do you make a small fortune on social media?” He asked before answering, “Start with a big one.”

He also tweeted a meme of someone throwing gang signs over a grave, with the Twitter logo placed over the person and headstone. The meme seems to imply that people are still coming to Twitter to discuss Twitter’s death.

To allay some people’s fears of mass strikes, Musk responded to Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy’s tweet. “The best people stay, so I’m not overly concerned,” Musk told him.

Newsweek will update this story with more details soon.