Read Elon Musk's first email to Twitter employees

Elon Musk sent his first email on Wednesday evening to Twitter employees warning of a "challenging economic environment" and the need for the company to launch Twitter Blue verified subscriptions to help "avoid the upcoming economic downturn."

After laying off half of Twitter's staff and eliminating entire teams, Musk is battling with advertisers who have halted their ad spending on the service in response to its acquisitions, chaotic management style, and his own tweets. Musk on Wednesday launched a new Twitter Blue subscription for $7.99 per month, allowing anyone in supported countries to pay for verification.

"We need about half of our revenue for subscriptions," Musk said in his email to employees, but the verification push is off to a rocky start with fake verified accounts masquerading as brands and celebrities in the past 24 hours.

Musk also makes it clear to employees that he needs to be in the office for now. "Everyone needs to be in the office at least 40 hours per week," Musk says.

We got Musk's first email to Twitter employees, and here it is in full:

Sorry, this is my first email to the entire company, but there is no way to scent the message.

Clearly, the economic picture ahead is grim, especially for a company like ours that relies on advertising in a challenging economic environment. Plus, 70% of our ads are brand rather than specific, which makes us doubly vulnerable!

This is why the priority over the past ten days has been to develop and launch Twitter Blue verified subscriptions (huge props for the team!). Without significant subscription revenue, there's a good chance Twitter won't survive the upcoming economic downturn. We need about half of our revenue from subscriptions.

Of course, we'll still be relying heavily on advertising even then, so I'm spending time with our sales and partnerships teams to make sure Twitter continues to attract advertisers.

The road ahead is tough and it will require hard work to be successful. We're also changing the Twitter policy to not allow remote work unless you have a specific exception. Managers will send exception lists to me for approval review.

From tomorrow (Thursday) everyone is required to be in office for at least 40 hours per week. Obviously, if you are physically unable to travel to an office or have a significant personal obligation, your absence is understandable.

I look forward to working with you to take Twitter to a whole new level. The potential is truly incredible!

thanks, lonely