On Thursday, more Twitter executives resigned. They included Kathleen Pacini, a human resources leader; Yoel Roth, the head of trust and safety; and Robin Wheeler, an advertising executive, according to four people familiar with the matter. There was confusion about some executives, including when Ms. Wheeler wrote in an internal company message on Thursday afternoon, which was viewed by The Times: “I’m still here. This is really hard right now.”
That followed the resignations of three top Twitter executives responsible for security, privacy and compliance on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter and internal documents seen by The New York Times.
The departing security executives were Lea Kissner, the chief information security officer; Damien Kieran, the chief privacy officer; and Marianne Fogarty, the chief compliance officer. They resigned a day before a deadline for Twitter to submit a compliance report to the Federal Trade Commission, which is overseeing privacy practices at the company as part of a 2011 settlement.
Twitter has typically reviewed its products for privacy problems before rolling them out to users, to avoid additional fines from the F.T.C. and remain in compliance with the settlement. But because of a rapid pace of product development under Mr. Musk, engineers could be forced to “self-certify” so that their projects meet privacy requirements, one employee wrote in an internal message seen by The Times.
“Elon has shown that he cares only about recouping the losses he’s incurring as a result of failing to get out of his binding obligation to buy Twitter,” the employee wrote. The changes to Twitter’s F.T.C. reviews could result in heavy fines and put people working for the company at risk, the person warned.
“This will put huge amount of personal, professional and legal risk onto engineers: I anticipate that all of you will be pressured by management into pushing out changes that will likely lead to major incidents,” the employee wrote.
“We are tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern,” Douglas Farrar, a spokesman for the F.T.C., said in a statement. “No C.E.O. or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees. Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”