Elon Musk appeared to have fired one in every of Twitter’s software program engineers Monday after the pair argued publicly over what Musk mentioned was the corporate’s subpar expertise for Android customers.
And it appears like he did it in a tweet.
Eric Frohnhoefer, whose LinkedIn account says he labored at Twitter for greater than eight years, apparently didn’t obtain formal discover of his firing earlier than or on the time Musk tweeted about it, in keeping with inner Slack messages obtained by CNBC.
Requested by a colleague whether or not he discovered of his firing by means of the tweet, Frohnhoefer responded, “Information to me,” in keeping with the Slack messages.
Frohnhoefer quote-tweeted Musk’s “fired” tweet late Monday morning with a salute emoji that has been utilized by many present and former Twitter workers just lately across the layoffs.
By early Monday night, Frohnhoefer had tweeted out an image of his laptop exhibiting that it had been locked, including: “Guess it’s official now.”
Frohnhoefer didn’t reply to a request for remark. Twitter didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The obvious public firing provides to what has already been a tumultuous run for Musk since he took management of the corporate late final month. He has laid off giant chunks of the corporate’s workforce, overseen the chaotic rollout-rollback-rollout-rollback of the platform’s new paid verification service and sparred with critics.
Musk started exchanging tweets with Frohnhoefer on Sunday after Frohnhoefer disputed a tweet by Musk about why the app had been “tremendous gradual in lots of international locations” for individuals who use the Android working system.
“I’ve spent ~6yrs engaged on Twitter for Android and might say that is unsuitable,” Frohnhoefer tweeted.
After Musk requested what he had performed to repair Android’s points, Frohnhoefer supplied an in depth clarification in regards to the firm’s app, pointing to “options that get little utilization,” in addition to “tech debt” (a time period utilized by software program engineers for when one thing is shipped rapidly on the expense of creating it environment friendly) and time spent ready for “community responses.”
Amid the back-and-forth, a Twitter person advised Monday that Musk might not need Frohnhoefer “in your staff.”
Musk responded: “He is fired.”