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Musk fires Twitter engineers for correcting, criticizing him on Twitter, Slack

 1 year ago
source link: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-fires-twitter-engineers-for-correcting-criticizing-him-on-twitter-slack/
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Lording over —

Musk fires Twitter engineers for correcting, criticizing him on Twitter, Slack

As many as 14 Twitter employees fired for tweets, Slack messages.

Ashley Belanger - 11/15/2022, 5:49 PM

Musk fires Twitter engineers for correcting, criticizing him on Twitter, Slack

By all appearances, there seems to be very little trust left between Elon Musk and Twitter’s remaining employees, particularly Twitter engineers. After Musk publicly fired a Twitter engineer by tweet yesterday, it’s now being reported that more than a dozen employees have been terminated for either posting critically about Musk’s leadership or simply supporting other people who posted critically.

Workers told The Verge that under Musk, Twitter has transformed into an “openly hostile” environment. And Musk—who already told employees that he would be relying on his paranoia to push through this difficult time—has possibly become so paranoid about Twitter engineers messing with Twitter code, he’s taken the drastic step of freezing them out from altering it. This happened during an “emergency meeting” held at 1:45 am on Monday, and Musk has provided no other explanation for the code freeze, The Verge reported.

Meanwhile, Musk has started turning to Twitter as a platform to publicly discuss his concerns and questions about how Twitter functions—rather than discussing privately with Twitter engineers. This appears to be the breaking point that one Twitter employee told The Verge felt so “degrading” to Twitter staff, leading multiple Twitter engineers to correct Musk’s ignorant tweets publicly.

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Most visibly, Twitter engineer Eric Frohnhoefer became the first Twitter employee that Musk fired by tweet when he responded to Musk’s incorrect tweet explaining why Twitter was slow on Android.

“I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong,” Frohnhoefer said in a now-deleted tweet.

Musk then had an exchange with Frohnhoefer that many felt could’ve best been had as an internal Twitter discussion. Instead, Frohnhoefer took the opportunity to chat with his boss publicly and responded professionally, sharing with Musk what he thinks would help improve Twitter for Android services. And though Musk later seemed to agree with some of Frohnhoefer’s suggestions, posting that he'd be implementing some of the solutions, the engineer was fired that day, with no official notice—except a tweet from Musk saying, “he’s fired.” When another Twitter employee shared this Musk tweet on the company Slack, Frohnhoefer still had access to see it, and he reportedly responded by saying, “News to me.”

Frohnhoefer wasn’t the only Twitter engineer who seemed to have reached his limit of patience with Musk’s leadership style. Another engineer who worked at Twitter for a decade, Ben Leib, told Bloomberg that he was fired on Sunday after also responding to the same Musk tweet. The tone of Leib's tweet reflects what The Verge reported is a growing solidarity between Twitter’s frustrated remaining staff against the hostility of Musk’s management style.

“As the former tech lead for timelines infrastructure at Twitter, I can confidently say this man has no idea wtf he's talking about,” Leib tweeted.

Ars could not immediately reach Frohnhoefer or Leib for comment.

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