Sources: Elon Musk fired a Twitter engineer for suggesting that his engagement numbers are tanking not because of a bug but because his popularity is waning

Inside Twitter 2.0, turmoil leaves employees stretched to the max — For weeks now, Elon Musk has been preoccupied with worries about how many people are seeing his tweets.

Platformer 2023-02-10

Context & Ripple Effects

The reported dismissal follows earlier firings of Twitter engineers who publicly criticized Musk and accounts from former employees describing erratic leadership. It places a disagreement over product metrics inside an already strained engineering organization.

The subsequent report of sales and engineering layoffs tied to Musk's ad-targeting demands shows why the dispute matters beyond one employee: Twitter was reducing the teams expected to diagnose engagement and advertising performance.

First-order effects

Twitter loses an engineer after a disagreement over the explanation for Musk's personal engagement, reinforcing Musk's direct control over how internal analysis of his account is handled.
Remaining Twitter engineers face a clearer employment risk when their technical assessment conflicts with Musk's view, while already working in a stretched organization.

Second-order effects

Twitter's smaller engineering and sales teams must pursue Musk's ad-targeting goals with less room for internal challenge, potentially concentrating product and measurement decisions around his priorities.
Advertisers and sales staff depend on engagement and targeting analysis; treating an internal diagnosis as a personnel dispute can weaken confidence in the feedback loop used to improve those products.

Third-order effects

If reported firings and workforce cuts continue together, Twitter's operating model shifts from independent technical escalation toward founder-directed decision-making, with fewer internal checks on product claims and priorities.

The trend: Twitter's post-acquisition restructuring is pairing aggressive staffing cuts with tighter founder control over internal technical dissent and product direction.

Discussion

@davepell@mastodon.social Dave Pell on mastodon
Don't treat follower counts and impressions as something that's sidetracking Elon. From the outset, this debacle has been about his Twitter addiction and the oceans of dopamine he requires. …
@zoeschiffer @zoeschiffer on x
NEW: While Twitter is breaking, Elon Musk is holding meetings to interrogate engineers about why his engagement is tanking. On Tuesday, he publicly fired one for showing that the lack of engagement isn't a bug — he's just less popular than he used to be: https://www.platformer.ne…
@oneunderscore__ Ben Collins on x
oh my god https://twitter.com/...
@caseynewton Casey Newton on x
NEW: Elon Musk fired a top engineer over his declining view counts. Plus the reason the site went down yesterday, fears about an upcoming FTC audit, and more. From @ZoeSchiffer and me in @platformer. https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@donmoyn Don Moynihan on x
Extraordinary: Musk believes that the company he owns has shadowbanned him, holds a meeting to complain he is not getting enough action on his tweets. Engineer provide some data showing people are losing interest in his antics. He fires them. https://www.platformer.news/ ... http…
@halalcoholism Christoph on x
Twitter engineer coming home, explaining how he got fired because Elon was mad his Likes were down this month, after making him attend to all of Ian Miles Cheong's queries & see if Catturd2 is still shadowbanned. Then his wife asks “Who?” & he has to explain who these people are.…
@jayblackisfunny Jay Black on x
Oh Elon. If you had spent, like, $1 billion on charity and another $5 million on comedy writers, you'd likely be the most popular person on Twitter right now (WITHOUT having it around your neck like an anchor). https://twitter.com/...
@rexchapman Rex Chapman🏇🏼 on x
The thing that gets me most is that a moron like me knows once you declare your political allegiance in today's world you're gonna immediately lose a lot of people who used to like you. That he seems baffled by this is enlightening.
@esqueer_ Alejandra Caraballo on x
Elon is in the dictator trap. He doesn't like what he's hearing so he fires anyone who tells him the bad news that Twitter use is going down. He's only surrounded by sycophants. This won't end well. https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@heerjeet Jeet Heer on x
If you were a twitter engineer, why wouldn't you figure out a way to jig the numbers so it shows Cat Turd the Second & Musk getting high engagement?
@kt_so_it_goes @kt_so_it_goes on x
what I'm taking away from this is if enough people just block elon he'll solve the whole elon problem himself https://twitter.com/...
@tomcoates Tom Coates on x
Swear to god, the harshest British sitcom of humiliation couldn't make something as cynical and savage as like one day's reporting on Musk and Twitter. @Aiannucci couldn't make up anything this bizarre and he made a satire set in space. I hope he's reading @platformer.
@superwuster Tim Wu on x
What's interesting about the twitter engagement controversy that Musk reportedly fired an engineer over: there's such an incentive to inflate / cook engagement numbers; almost like the power to print psychic money and hand it out https://www.theverge.com/...
@martinsfp @martinsfp on x
A belter from @platformer today. Re yesterday's Twitter outage: “An employee had inadvertently deleted data for an internal service that sets rate limits for using Twitter. The team that worked on that service left the company in November” https://open.substack.com/...
@rvawonk Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D on x
Elon Musk's entire brand is built on innovation, yet he can't think of a way to break out of the engagement-for-the-sake-of-engagement model of social media? Come on. Instead of being pissy about his engagement rates, he should be thinking of better incentive/reward systems. http…
@robindlaws Robin D. Laws on x
This is also how I encourage my underlings to give me correct information https://twitter.com/...
@judysquirrels Jourdain on x
do you think he's ever watched citizen kane https://twitter.com/...
@anthony Anthony DeRosa on x
.@platformer claims this is why Twitter was down yesterday: “It turns out that an employee had inadvertently deleted data for an internal service that sets rate limits for using Twitter. The team that worked on that service left the company in November” https://www.platformer.new…
@cwarzel Charlie Warzel on x
so...does this mean the same thing for all accounts...aren't most legacy verified ppl also saying they're seeing less engagement? does that mean that just a ton of people have left the site/stopped interacting? https://twitter.com/...
@bydavidgardner David Gardner on x
Elon's got two big problems: 1) He's not a poster. He simply doesn't have what it takes. 2) Twitter's getting worse. They cut helpful features, like trending descriptions. They rolled out horrible new ones — like the “for you” TL. And the app gets noticeably glitchier daily https…
@danprimack Dan Primack on x
The fairly obvious A/B test for @elonmusk on Twitter engagement would be to flip the app default on For You/Following.
@pt Parker on x
Twitter is obviously in chaos, but every paragraph in this article could've itself been a huge negative story for a normal company. https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@acitrano Anthony Citrano on x
This is quite literally the worst type of manager. “Bring me only good news and stroke my ego OR ELSE.” When you manage via fear, your best talent leaves because they can; everybody wants them. Your least talented - those you least want to keep - stay because they have to. /1 htt…
@katienotopoulos Katie Notopoulos on x
As someone who has had push alerts for his tweets for the last few months, I would say that he has been tweeting lately mostly boring stuff about rocket launches. He needs to pump up the crazy juice 40% and give us the nightmare tweets to get back in the game. https://twitter.com…
@eddierobson Eddie Robson on x
Dad convenes house meeting to demand explanation for why no-one is laughing at his jokes https://twitter.com/...
@acitrano Anthony Citrano on x
@kyliebytes @williamlegate A CEO firing truth-tellers is the worst kind of leader: https://twitter.com/...
@andrewflood Andrew Flood on x
Watching Musk crash is fascinating - even the fan boys seem to have mostly fallen silent - it's a huge shame that a single billionaire could wreck this once great resource but I guess That's Capitalism https://twitter.com/...
@fmanjoo Farhad Manjoo on x
Boss: Why aren't my tweets popular? Worker: they're just not that into you. Boss: you're fired @platformer story Mr thin skin https://www.platformer.news/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@oeste Aaron West on x
I been laughing all day thinking about him setting up these all hands on deck meetings only for incredibly nervous engineers who hate confrontation to tell him “actually sir the data says ur tweets just suck” https://twitter.com/...
@kyliebytes Kylie Robison on x
Elon DEEPLY cares about how popular he is on here. So much so, he brought it up on Tesla's recent earnings call. https://twitter.com/...
@waltmossberg Walt Mossberg on x
This is yet another excellent inside-Twitter deep dive by the talented @ZoeSchiffer and her boss, the world's best social media reporter, @CaseyNewton. https://twitter.com/...
@jonfavs Jon Favreau on x
Oh no, Elon's Twitter shadowbanned Elon https://twitter.com/...
@hshaban Hamza Shaban on x
This Twitter employee's dire description of what its like inside the company reads like a universal tale of media company mismanagement: https://www.platformer.news/ ... Via @ZoeSchiffer & @CaseyNewton https://twitter.com/...
@phil_lewis_ Philip Lewis on x
Elon Musk fired a top Twitter engineer over his declining view count “This is ridiculous,” he reportedly said. “I have more than 100 million followers, and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions.” https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@tomgara Tom Gara on x
“As the adage goes, ‘you ship your org chart,’” said one current employee. “It's chaos here right now, so we're shipping chaos.” https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@lorakolodny Lora Kolodny on x
rage firings not just a tesla thing- great scoop at @platformer https://twitter.com/...
@scalzi John Scalzi on x
He didn't kill the messenger, but he fired them, which at this point was probably a relief for the messenger. https://www.theverge.com/...
@seankeeleyisme Sean Keeley on x
Just a total and complete child. https://twitter.com/...
@iboudreau Ian Boudreau on x
Bare-ass emperor buffoon-level shit https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@zachbussey Zach Bussey on x
A common experience many people are having is significant drops in engagement. I know I've seen it in my own analytics, and seen many others complaining about it. Twitter just isn't great since Elon took over. https://twitter.com/...
@jareddipane Jared DiPane on x
The more I see stuff like this, the more I hate this platform. It's not that I hate Twitter, I just hate what it's become because of a child who's in an adult body that so many people have thought the world of for far too long. https://twitter.com/...
@futureboy Chris Taylor on x
Don't tell the emperor about his sartorial situation, I guess https://twitter.com/...
@taylorlorenz Taylor Lorenz on x
Every word of this is wilder than the last https://www.platformer.news/ ...
@kurtwagner8 Kurt Wagner on x
“As the adage goes, 'you ship your org chart,” says one current employee. “It's chaos here right now, so we're shipping chaos.” Really jealous of this really great reporting on what's happening inside Twitter 2.0 https://twitter.com/...
@tim_maliyil Tim Maliyil on x
This is a crazy story. It made me think of how Dr. Evil ran his team meetings in the Austin Powers movies. 😃 https://twitter.com/...
@karaswisher Kara Swisher on x
On brand https://twitter.com/...
@caylenb Mr. Goofus on x
there are many very funny things about this article but my particular favorite is the knowledge of the remaining engineering staff at Twitter, including the Tesla lackeys used Google Trend as an objective dataset https://twitter.com/...
@harrymccracken Harry McCracken on x
Self-shadowbanning is the worst form of shadowbanning of all. https://twitter.com/...
@stevanzetti @stevanzetti on x
“The problem appears to be one of Musk's own making. By getting rid of so many long-tenured staff, it appears Twitter has routed its institutional knowledge about how the platform works and interacts with other parts of the app.” https://www.fastcompany.com/ ...
@mingle74 Melissa Ingle on x
In which I and a few other engineers say it out loud: Twitter may be stuck in a death spiral. https://www.fastcompany.com/ ...
@stokel @stokel on x
Former Twitter engineers fear the platform is caught in a vicious cycle: it's too scared of breaking so instigates code freezes that mean when changes do happen, it's impossible to unpick issues - which results in another freeze. My latest for @FastCompany https://www.fastcompany…

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