Snarky Elon Musk has apologized for dramatically firing more than a dozen Twitter employees who criticized him on an internal messaging system.
The axed tech workers were informed by email that they had been ‘terminated immediately’ because they ‘violated company policy’.
They allegedly made critical comments about the new CEO on the company’s Slack messaging system – resulting in them being laid off by the new billionaire boss.
And the new Twitter leader confirmed the culling himself – saying that he would ‘like to apologize for firing these geniuses.’
Musk sarcastically said that their ‘immense talent’ can be used elsewhere.
Platformer, a news outlet which covers social networks, reported ‘around 20 people have been fired so far for their Slack posts’.
Elon Musk admitted that he fired the Twitter workers after staff were informed by email that they had been ‘terminated immediately’
One Twitter employee posted the email they received from HR at 2.27am on Tuesday which said his ’employment is terminated effective immediately after he ‘violated company policy’
One former staff member tweeted out a screenshot of the unceremonious sacking email from Twitter HR – which read: ‘We regret to inform you that your employment is terminated effective immediately.
‘Your recent behavior has violated company policy. Our operations team will be reaching out to you with offboarding instructions.’
The email was sent at 2.27am from an email account named Twitter HR.
In a follow up Tweet, the former staffer added: ‘My twitter account was protected at the time, so I can only assume this was for not showing 100% loyalty in slack. I’ve heard the same thing has happened to many others now.’
It comes after Musk, who completed a $44 billion buyout of the social media platform in October, apparently fired an employee publicly via Twitter.
The nature of the criticism posted to Slack by the culled employees is not immediately clear.
Another ex-employee tweeted on Tuesday that they were ‘officially fired by Twitter’.
Yao Yue, a software engineer, was reportedly one of those who criticized Musk on Slack.
‘After 12 amazing years and 3 weeks of chaos, I’m officially fired by Twitter. Never expected I would have stayed this long, and never expected I would be this relieved to be gone.
‘I have a lot of stories to tell. But to my fellow (ex-)tweeps. #LoveWhereYouWorked’
Other reports about the alleged firings say some of those let go were ‘respected software engineers’.
The latest cull comes after Musk publicly fired software engineer Eric Frohnhoefer on Monday.
Eric Frohnhoefer appeared to be fired by Elon Musk on Twitter after he sent off a tweet disagreeing with the new CEO
Frohnhoefer – who worked for Twitter for eight years according to his LinkedIn – also tweeted out a photo of a locked laptop screen and wrote ‘Guess it is official now,’ suggesting he may have truly been canned
The incident started after Musk tweeted an apology for the speed of the twitter app on Android devices, and then Frohnhoefer sent off a tweet saying he disagreed with Musk.
Musk was eventually tagged in Frohnhoefer’s tweet by other users, and the new Twitter CEO bluntly wrote ‘He’s fired.’
Twitter has not confirmed whether or not Frohnhoefer was actually sacked, but sources told the Daily Beast his Slack account within Twitter was offline Monday.
Frohnhoefer – who worked for Twitter for eight years according to his LinkedIn – also tweeted out a photo of a locked laptop screen and wrote ‘Guess it is official now’.
The incident comes as Musk has already begun to cut scores of jobs at Twitter after vowing to fire up to seventy-five percent of his staff.
Frohnhoefer’s departure came after Musk sent off a seemingly innocuous tweet on Sunday afternoon about the Twitter app’s speed in different countries.
‘Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!’ he wrote.
Frohnhoefer, who worked on Twitter’s Android team, seemed to take umbrage with Musk’s comment.
‘I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong.’ he tweeted.
Musk responded by insisting Twitter was slow on Android and asking Frohnhoefer what he did to fix it during his time with the social media company.
‘Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?’ he wrote.
Musk appeared at the B20 summit in Brazil on Monday and seemed to both lament and shrug off the controversy that has followed his takeover
Musk has faced an avalanche of criticism since completing the $44 billion takeover of the social media platform
Frohnhoefer replied with a laundry list of things he’s done at work, along with his assessment of what might be causing the slowdowns.
On Monday, a third user tagged Musk in the tweet chain and wrote ‘with this kind of attitude, you probably don’t want this guy on your team.’
Musk responded within the hour, announcing ‘he’s fired.’
Twitter has been embroiled in several controversies since Musk completed the $44 billion takeover of the social media platform.
He fired much of its full-time workforce by email soon after the deal was completed, and then got rid of thousands of contractors, hollowing out teams that battle misinformation.
Shortly after the layoffs, he asked dozens of employees to come back.
He also rolled out an $8 subscription service for the platform’s blue checkmarks, but had to suspend it after a slew of imposters appeared – including some posing as him or his products.
On Monday, he addressed delegates to the B20 summit in Brazil, which aimed to bring together business leaders and world leaders ahead of the Group of 20 meeting that begins on the tropical island island on Tuesday.
Musk appeared at the summit via video broadcast. Asked how it felt to have become a media mogul, he seemed to both lament and shrug off the controversy that has followed his takeover.
‘It’s a little uncomfortable,’ he admitted. ‘Twitter is sort of media but it’s not exactly media. It is a medium as opposed to media.
‘But I mean, there’s no way to make everyone happy, that’s for sure.’
