Elon Musk appears to have fired one of Twitter’s software engineers on Monday after the pair argued publicly over what Musk said was the company’s subpar experience for Android users.
And it looks like he did it in a tweet.
Eric Frohnhoefer, whose LinkedIn account says he worked at Twitter for more than eight years, apparently did not receive formal notice of his firing before or at the time Musk tweeted about it, according to internal Slack messages obtained by CNBC.
When asked by a colleague if he learned of his firing through the tweet, Frohnhoefer responded, “News to me,” according to the Slack messages.
Frohnhoefer quote tweeted Musk’s “fired” tweet with a salute emoji late Monday morning that has been used by many current and former Twitter employees recently around the layoffs.
By early Monday evening, Frohnhoefer had tweeted out a screenshot of his computer showing that it had been locked, adding: “Guess it is official now.”
Frohnhoefer did not respond to a request for comment. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The apparent public firing adds to what has already been a tumultuous run for Musk since he took control of the company in late October. Since then, he has laid off large chunks of the company’s workforce, overseen the chaotic rollout-rollback-rollout-rollback of the platform’s new paid verification service, and sparred with critics.
Musk began exchanging tweets with Frohnhoefer on Sunday after the software engineer disputed a tweet from Musk about why the app had been “super slow in many countries” for those who use the Android operating system.
“I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong,” Frohnhoefer tweeted.
After Musk asked what he’s done to fix Android’s issues, Frohnhoefer offered a detailed explanation about the company’s app, pointing to “features that get little usage” as well as “tech debt” (a term used by software engineers for when shipping something quickly is done at the expense of making it efficient), and time spent waiting for “network responses.”
Amid the back-and-forth, a Twitter user on Monday suggested Musk may not want Frohnhoefer “on your team.”
Musk responded: “He’s fired.”
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