A Twitter manager says laid-off engineers he's rehired are 'weak, lazy, unmotivated'

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco. Tayfun Coskun/Getty Images

• A Twitter manager described laid-off engineers he rehired as "weak, lazy, unmotivated."
• A screenshot of what appeared to be Slack messages has circulated on the Blind app.
• A source confirmed the manager worked for Twitter and said his comments sparked much internal debate.

A Twitter manager who rehired engineers after they lost their jobs in the recent mass layoffs appeared to criticize them on the company's internal messaging system.

 A screenshot of the comments made by the senior director of engineering were posted by another Twitter worker on the anonymous forum Blind. They read: "This is going to be the challenge. The engineers I am bringing back are weak, lazy, unmotivated, and they may even be against an Elon Twitter."

"They were cut for a reason, so we need to think of these people as just needing to be around until the knowledge transition is completed," the manager continued.

A source at Twitter who spoke on condition on anonymity confirmed the manager's identity to Insider. The individual's LinkedIn profile showed that they had worked for Twitter since 2013.

The manager has been contacted for comment by Insider.

The comments have sparked much internal debate on Slack, according to Insider's source.

A screenshot of the messages also circulated online, which was also shared by data journalist Joshua Byrd.

The managing editor of the tech-and-democracy focused newsletter Platformer, Zoë Schiffer, tweeted that she had confirmed the manager did work at Twitter but later deleted her tweet saying: "I don't think naming someone at his level is necessary (not because the screenshot isn't real)."

Insider also surveyed Blind, a forum where employees can hold anonymous conversations, and found a post asking users whether they thought Elon Musk would take action following the manager's comments.

Of 157 responses, 60 thought Musk would promote the manager, 56 thought he would do nothing and 41 said he would fire the individual.

Musk fired half Twitter's workforce after taking control, but a few days later some employees were already been asked to come back. 

Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider.