Nueva York (CNN Business) — Elon Musk has publicly clashed with a growing number of Twitter employees over the state of the platform, firing at least one of them in a tweet, in an unusually visible sign of corporate chaos following his takeover of the influential company for US$ 44,000 million.
Musk engaged in a dispute with software engineer Eric Frohnhoefer on Twitter on Monday that ended with the billionaire tweeting “you’re fired” and Frohnhoefer confirming that he had lost access to Twitter’s internal systems. The public firing came after Frohnhoefer tweeted evidence suggesting Musk was “wrong” about his claims that Twitter was running, in the billionaire’s words, “super slow” in several countries.
Frohnhoefer told CNN on Monday night that he found out about the firing when a friend sent him Musk’s tweet and said “no one from Twitter got in touch with me.” Frohnhoefer added that he had been “willing to give Musk a chance” and described himself as “in the wait-and-see kind of way” but that “everything that’s been reported is true.” He described working for Musk as a “total disaster” and the current state of affairs as pure “chaos.”
At least one other employee who weighed in offering context on the issue had also been fired Tuesday morning, according to a tweet from that employee. And a handful of other Twitter employees said on the platform Tuesday that they were fired over an email saying their “behavior has violated company policy,” with some speculating the move may have been a reaction to the comments. they did on internal Slack channels. Sources have told CNN that employees in recent days have been very outspoken in their criticism of Musk on the company’s Slack. (CNN has attempted to contact the fired employees for confirmation.)
In response to a tweet about the news of the layoffs on Tuesday, Musk said: “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will undoubtedly be of great use elsewhere.”
The layoffs come after Musk cut half of Twitter’s staff and, apparently, many of its contractors, in a way that many critics have called poorly done and could jeopardize the platform. Musk’s retaliation against those who disagree with him also comes at a time when he has consolidated his control over the company by ousting top Twitter executives and removing its board of directors.
In his absence, Musk now runs Twitter with the help of his friends Jason Calacanis and David Sacks, his personal lawyer Alex Spiro and, apparently, engineers on loan from some of his other companies, including Tesla. In addition to the public pushback from employees, some Twitter staffers appear to have tried to appeal to Musk and his inner circle in private as they weigh numerous disruptive changes to the platform.
An internal document obtained by CNN indicates that employees had raised concerns with Musk and others about some of the likely consequences if Twitter rolls out its new $8-a-month paid verification service. The document, which is dated November 1 and has proven prescient, provides a list of recommendations on how to avoid the most extreme potential consequences of rolling out a subscription that anyone could pay $8 for and receive a checkmark.
“Preflighting provides a critical signal in enforcing phishing rules, the loss of which is likely to lead to increased impersonation of high-profile accounts on Twitter,” the document states, adding that these issues could lead to a loss of trust among high-profile users. It also raises concerns that the service could lead to a “pay-to-play” system in which key voices who are unable or unwilling to pay for the subscription, such as “individuals from sanctioned countries (including dissidents and activists) )”, may lose priority.
Esther Crawford, a Twitter product manager who is reportedly now leading the upgrade to its Twitter Blue subscription service, was made aware of the document ahead of the payment verification option’s implementation last week, as were Musk and his lawyer Spiro, a source told CNN. The digital platform Platformer was the first to report the details of the document.
Within hours of launching the payment verification system last week, Twitter was hit by a wave of celebrity and business impersonators on its platform, who quickly took advantage of the system, potentially increasing uncertainty among advertisers, they make up almost all of Twitter’s business. The paid subscription service was suspended on Friday without notice. It was not clear when it would be reinstated.
Even with the apparent firing of employees who complain, some have continued to do so publicly. After Musk posted a graph purporting to show a slight increase in Twitter’s daily active users, a data scientist at the company responded that the graph was wrong. In response to a user asking if the employee was “safe,” the employee replied, “He’ll never find me out.”