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.

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.

Slack firings and stock options

As the number of Twitter staff fired for tweets grows to at least four, Big Tech reporter Gergely Orosz tweeted that the remaining staff must also watch what they say in Slack. Before Musk’s takeover, the culture at Twitter encouraged staff to be critical in the company Slack, Bloomberg reported. Any employee who thought they were still free to do that now seemingly risks learning the hard way that being critical about Twitter is no longer an option under Musk's leadership.

“Another ~10 Twitter employees who made sassy or critical remarks about Twitter's current leadership on a Twitter internal Slack channel have been terminated overnight,” Orosz tweeted. “One person was told they are let go ‘for recent behavior.’”

At Twitter, a line seems to have been drawn between Twitter staff and Musk’s advisers and engineers brought in from Tesla and the Boring Company, The Verge reported, and while some of this discord is spilling out onto Twitter publicly, more is leaking out via shared screenshots of the company’s Slack. Things that probably irk Musk include Twitter staff referring to Musk’s trusted outsiders as “the goons” on Slack. One Twitter employee posted on Slack, vaguely summarizing how Musk had shattered team morale: “I’m wondering when people will realize the value of Twitter was the people that worked here.”

Musk has said that he will grant access to code to engineers who need to make urgent changes on a case-by-case basis. But rather than talk to engineers about changes Musk might consider urgent, Musk appears to be fielding some of his questions about Twitter functionality from random Twitter users.

Publicly demonstrating his distrust for Twitter engineers, firing those who criticize him, and freezing out people most knowledgeable of Twitter’s products and services, Orosz tweeted, gives Twitter engineers little reason to stick around and rally around Musk.

“Serious question: outside of outsized, unvested stock on the line or high compensation, why would any software engineer with options consider working at Twitter, going forward?” Orosz tweeted.

It appears Musk has been eyeing stock and options for employees as one potential strategy for retention. CNBC reviewed an internal memo showing that Musk told Twitter employees Monday that “they can receive stock and options as part of an ongoing compensation plan.”

To encourage the “hardcore” work ethic that Musk told Twitter staff they must embrace to remain on his team, Musk said that people who do “exceptional” work could expect to receive “exceptional amounts” of shares. This, Musk said, is how he runs SpaceX, granting SpaceX employees stock awards on May 15 and November 15, CNBC reported.

It’s unclear, though, if stock awards would actually be meaningful enough to keep Twitter employees around, as they’re watching Musk struggle to make Twitter profitable with a much-reduced staff. The Verge reported that one Twitter employee said on the company Slack, “In 2 weeks Twitter has gone from being the most welcoming and healthy workplace I’ve ever known to the most openly hostile and degrading I’ve ever known.”

Firing employees for being critical of their new leader is one thing, but at least two employees said they got fired just for “shitposting”—commenting in an off-topic way, simply to provoke reactions—which is arguably Musk’s favorite part of being on Twitter. It seems on top of risking termination for being critical, employees also risk termination for being funny.

lol just got fired for shitposting

i said it before and i'll say it again

kiss my ass elon 💋

— [email protected] (@sachee) November 15, 2022

As Musk struggles to control what he perceives as insubordination, the director of Fight for the Future (an activist group dedicated to defending human rights online), Evan Greer, tweeted days ago to encourage Twitter staff to keep showing solidarity.

“Honestly at this point Twitter employees should just occupy the headquarters, refuse to work, call for solidarity from labor / activists / Twitter users and see how long Musk wants to sit around burning his personal fortune,” Greer said. “He would have absolutely no clue how to respond to this.”

Twitter has an ethics hotline where employees can report workplace concerns, but that has likely become harder to trust amid the brewing tension between leadership and Twitter staff. There is also a class-action lawsuit moving forward in California, seeking an emergency hearing to secure a court order requiring Twitter to notify staff of their eligibility to join the lawsuit. The lawyer for staff suing, Shannon Liss-Riordan, told Ars that they're expecting that hearing to be scheduled soon.

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