Elon Musk fires Twitter's app developer via tweet; here's why

By Team Newsable  |  First Published Nov 15, 2022, 11:32 AM IST

After laying off 50 percent of employees and thousands of contractors, the new Twitter CEO Elon Musk has now fired a member of Android app developer team, but this time via a tweet.  The person whose employment was terminated by Musk is an Android developer named Eric Frohnhoefer.


Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter Inc., has resorted to sacking company engineers who openly disagree with him on the social media platform. Musk has referred to himself as a "free speech absolutist."

In one instance, Musk tweeted the news of the termination. In another, the ex-employee said he was let go after publicly criticising Musk. On Sunday, Musk's tweet was republished with a response from engineer Eric Frohnhoefer, who works on Twitter's Android app, stating that Musk's knowledge of a technical aspect of the programme was "incorrect."

I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong. https://t.co/sh30ZxpD0N

— Eric Frohnhoefer @ 🏡 (@EricFrohnhoefer)

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Musk replied and asked Frohnhoefer to elaborate, before writing, “Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?”

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Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

Frohnhoefer attempted to articulate his thoughts in a series of tweets, but one person questioned him as to why he hadn't privately given his new employer his opinion. The engineer, who has worked at Twitter for more than eight years, replied, “maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe use Slack or email.” Musk said that Frohnhoefer had been sacked in a post on Monday morning.

He’s fired

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

When numerous staff were let go earlier this month, Frohnhoefer shared the tweet and added a saluting emoji.

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🫡 https://t.co/YpaQysrIv0

— Eric Frohnhoefer @ 🏡 (@EricFrohnhoefer)

Ben Leib, another engineer, lost his job after criticising Musk. As the previous technical head for Twitter's timelines infrastructure, he retweeted the same technical article from Musk and stated, "This dude has no idea wtf he's talking about." Leib, who spent ten years working at Twitter, acknowledged his dismissal to Bloomberg on Sunday. Since Musk took over at the end of last month, Twitter has fallen into chaos. Many employees are still angry about Musk's decision to fire half of the company's 7,000+ employees, including the majority of the senior managers, just one week after his $44 billion buyout.

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