New owner Elon Musk has reportedly fired at least two engineers at the social media platform after they disparaged some of the comments posted on the site by the billionaire, Bloomberg News reported.
Elon Musk who describes himself as committed to free speech, on Sunday night canned Eric Frohnhoefer, who said he spent six years working on Twitter for Android.
On Sunday night, Frohnhoefer reposted a tweet from Elon Musk calling Twitter super slow in several countries, and said that was incorrect. Elon Musk replied and asked Frohnhoefer to elaborate before writing Twitter is very slow on Android, what have you done to fix it?
The engineer went over some technical aspects of the app on Android with Musk and explained why it might run slowly. In a later deleted tweet, Elon Musk posted that he was fired. Frohnhoefer followed with a saluting emoji.
Late Monday, Frohnhoefer retweeted his last comment on that conversation thread suggesting the priority for the company was that I was still fired. He also shared a screenshot of his locked Mac with the comment. Frohnhoefer told Forbes on Monday afternoon that he had not received any formal communication from the company about his dismissal.
Ben Lieb, a second engineer, retweeted Musk’s initial allegation that Twitter is super slow, with the comment that as the former tech lead for timeline infrastructure at Twitter, I can confidently say this guy doesn’t know.
But on Sunday afternoon, a decade-long employee told Bloomberg she received a pink slip on Sunday. The two engineers are among about 3,700 employees since Elon Musk lost their jobs on October 27 following the company’s $44 billion acquisition. The first to leave included the former CEO and chief financial officer, as well as other senior management.
Frohnhoefer tweeted early Tuesday that the firing was ongoing. Just woke up to the news that more Tweeps were summarily fired last night. At this rate there won’t be anyone left to run Twitter. Corporate online public exchanges Noting that publicly challenging leadership was not routine, Bloomberg said the culture reflected that employees often spoke through internal Slack channels and email.
Bloomberg reported that the management change has led to communication issues among employees, with employees not being clear about who is in charge or what their priorities are. Elon Musk moved to recall all remaining employees to Twitter headquarters. or risk being fired. He has also reportedly ended free lunches at the office.