As the billionaire assumes ownership of Twitter, staff at the social media company are “freaking.”

By David Jeans, Alexandra S. Levine and John Paczkowski

Silent Slack channels. Lawyers in war rooms. Final meals.

After Elon Musk took control of the company Thursday evening, four top executives—including the CEO, CFO, general counsel and head of legal policy, trust, and safety—were escorted from the company’s San Francisco headquarters. Now employees wonder if and when Musk will make good on his reported pledge to investors to cut Twitter’s workforce by 75 percent, and if they will be next.

“People are freaking,” said one current employee, a sentiment solidified by the arrival of a “small battalion of new lawyers” at headquarters this week.

Communication has been so sparse that some staffers tell Forbes they are looking to press reports on the outside for clues as to what’s unfolding on the inside, and whether they’ll still have their jobs by the end of the week. “There have been no internal comms about the departures,” one employee said. “No internal comms about anything, really.” Some are learning about developments in real-time through the Twitter hashtag #TwitterTakeover, where potential misinformation has started to spread—encapsulating their very concerns over what may happen under a Musk-owned Twitter.

There has not yet been any word on when, or if, employees will be addressed today by Musk, or other senior leaders. Of particular concern is whether a mass firing...

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