Twitter engineer calls Elon Musk wrong publicly, gets fired by billionaire via tweet

Twitter which is a platform that often hosts heated debates and exchange of ideas on diverse subjects, has itself become a topic of discussion on social media with Elon Musk’s tweeting behaviour in focus. Apart from ordering employees to work for 40 hours a week and warning them about bankruptcy, Musk has also been getting into Twitter spats with a senator and an author who criticised his blue tick scheme. Now the chief twit on his crusade for free speech, has fired an engineer that pointed out a factual iaccuracy in Musk’s claims on Twitter.

Another public spat

The exchange took place in public, when Elon Musk tweeted that the site is slow in many countries and is doing 1000 times worse than other sites to load a timeline. This prompted a response from developer Eric Frohnhoefer, who has worked on the Twitter app for Android, as he claimed that what Musk said is wrong.

When confronted by another user for calling out Musk in public, Frohnhoefer retorted that he should ask questions privately, and this was followed by Musk’s comment publicly firing the engineer.

He had also advised Musk on measures to address tech debts of more than a decade as well as deleting features.

Frohnhoefer later also tweeted a screenshot of his work laptop being locked, similar to the way other employees found out about their termination.

Before him several top executives including the ad boss and diversity boss have voluntarily quit Twitter. At the same time, an employee who publicly tweeted an image of herself sleeping at the headquarters to work long hours, survived the layoffs.

Tech sector in trouble?

Twitter’s firing streak was followed by Facebook which laid off 11,000 people, and entertainment giant Disney as well. Amazon is also likely to layoff 10,000 people, while its boss Jeff Bezos is giving majority of his $124 billion fortune to charity. Although Musk blames it on loss of revenue caused by activists, the US’ tech sector has been reporting a drop in profits.