A Twitter employee and top exec who went viral last November after being pictured sleeping in the floor of the company’s offices amid the early days of Elon Musk’s takeover has been fired, according to multiple reports.
Esther Crawford, Twitter’s Director of Product Management who also led the Twitter Payments division, was first reported by Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer to have been fired over the weekend. Just last month, current and prior Twitter employees were cited in aFinancial Times piece as having described Crawford as having quickly become “among the most influential leaders left” at the post-Musk version of the company.
Just got confirmation that Esther Crawford, chief executive of Twitter Payments, is out.
As previously reported, Crawford was instrumental in a number of Twitter projects, including leading the rollout of the widely criticized new feature Twitter Blue. For many, Crawford is also known in connection with the aforementioned viral pic, which has been referenced numerous times in reports surrounding the unfortunate Muskification of Twitter.
When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork
Although Crawford didn’t appear to have publicly and directly addressed her reported firing at the time of this writing, she did point to an apparent exit in a tweet shared late Sunday evening.
“The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake,” Crawford said, adding that she was “deeply proud” of the company’s work.
The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake. Those who jeer & mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena. I’m deeply proud of the team for building through so much noise & chaos. 💙
On Monday, she returned to her account to add, “If you can’t take being publicly dunked on then be sure to avoid taking any risks and stay away from all leadership roles. Don’t build or disrupt anything. Stay small and invisible and most of all, be silent and afraid of what others think.”
If you can’t take being publicly dunked on then be sure to avoid taking any risks and stay away from all leadership roles. Don’t build or disrupt anything. Stay small and invisible and most of all, be silent and afraid of what others think.
Complex has reached out to Esther Crawford for comment. This story may be updated.
