A Twitter employee who worked on the platformโs Android app has been suspended โ immediately after an online brawl with CEO Elon Musk over the platformโs Android app.
The fired employee said to Forbes that there was no official communication to him regarding the suspension, but he was locked out of his work laptop. Also, he criticized that no one trusts anyone within the company now, unlike earlier before Muskโs takeover.
Firing Employees Criticising in Public
Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter, he has been doing wild things at the company โ like playing with the verification system, Blue subscription, laying off employees, etc. While some are appreciated, some are criticized and even attract informal warnings from the regulators.
Now, it seems the internal employees to are not a fan of Muskโs behavior at the company and how heโs handling it. The latest in this pursuit is firing at least three employees โ who had gone against him publicly on Twitter! One among them is Eric Frohnhoefer, Twitterโs Android app developer and been with the company for over six years.
I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong. https://t.co/sh30ZxpD0N
— Eric Frohnhoefer @ ???? (@EricFrohnhoefer) November 13, 2022
The accusations started with Musk apologizing public for their Twitter Android app being dead slower in some countries, to which, Frohnhoefer responded by calling Muskโs statement โwrong.โ
He was soon replied to by Musk, asking for whatโs the right number and what has he done to fix it. Eric Frohnhoefer soon came up with justifications โFirst, itโs bloated with features that get little usage. Second, we have accumulated years of tech debt as we have traded velocity and features over perf. Third, we spend a lot of time waiting for network responses.โ
As this kept going on, one Twitter user told Frohnhoefer that he shouldโve informed his boss privately on this. But Frohnhoefer said, โMaybe he (Musk) should ask questions privately. Maybe using Slack or email.โ
And maybe thatโs what triggered Musk, who soon informed everyone on Twitter that he had been fired! Talking to Forbes, Frohnhoefer said he received no formal communication from the company about his suspension but was locked out of his work laptop immediately after that online brawl.