Musk Publicly Punishes Twitter Engineers Who Call Him Out Online
Twitter owner Elon Musk, who has called himself a “free speech absolutist,” has resorted to firing company engineers who publicly criticize him on the social-media service.
In one case, Musk announced the firing in a tweet. In another, the former employee said he was fired after he openly rebuked Musk.
Engineer Eric Frohnhoefer, who worked on Twitter’s app for the Android mobile operating system, on Sunday reposted one of Musk’s tweets with a comment, saying that Musk’s
understanding of a technical part of Twitter’s app was “wrong.” Musk replied and asked Frohnhoefer to elaborate, before writing, “Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?”
After attempting to explain his thinking in a number of tweets, Frohnhoefer was asked by another user why he hadn’t shared his feedback with his new boss privately.
The engineer, who has worked at Twitter for more than eight years, replied, “maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe use Slack or email.”
Maybe use Slack or email.”On Monday morning, Musk wrote that Frohnhoefer had been fired