A Twitter software engineer who created cartoons poking fun at his own company says he was fired because he's a 'troublemaker'

•     A Twitter software engineer said he was fired on Tuesday, just days after Elon Musk took control.

•     Emmanuel Cornet said he believes the new management didn't want to deal with a "troublemaker."

•     Twitter HR last year asked him to take down cartoons he tweeted and published internally.

A cartoon-drawing Twitter employee believes he was fired following Elon Musk's takeover because the new management didn't want to deal with a "troublemaker."

Emmanuel Cornet, who is also known as Manu, joined Twitter last year as a software engineer after leaving Google, where he spent a decade poking fun at the company with his satirical cartoons.

Insider has reported that Musk plans to sack about half of Twitter's staff and Cornet is one of those who has lost his job.

The 41-year-old software engineer said in a blog post seen by Insider: "Since I was one of the early layoffs after the Oct 2022 acquisition of Twitter, some people have been curious about the reasons. My current understanding is that I was too much of a potential troublemaker for the new management."

He wrote that after he tweeted a cartoon last year, Twitter HR asked him to take it down, along with one he had posted internally.

Cornet believed it was very unlikely that Twitter fired him for poor performance: "I hope those never come or remain minimal, but the 'poor performance' layoffs haven't started yet."

 The software engineer gave his cartoon to Elon Musk, to which the billionaire reportedly responded: "Well I bought it anyway."

Manu Cornet © Manu Cornet

As Musk visited Twitter's San Francisco headquarters last week, Cornet handed him a cartoon with a note that read: "I hope you don't mind a 'court jester' at Twitter or you'll have to get me fired," signed with an emoji sticking his tongue out.

Musk reportedly responded: "Well, I bought it anyway."

Cornet concluded: "I don't hold any grudges against people who were just doing their job when confronted with a naive and mildly idealistic troublemaker like me, and I loved my time at Twitter, especially my coworkers."

Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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