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Twitter engineer fired for suggesting that the public is over Elon Musk's antics

The engineer attributed a decrease in Musk's popularity to his low engagement numbers.

Donovan Erskine

February 9, 2023 3:00 PM

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Elon Musk is a walking headline, constantly making the news for his behavior both personally and professionally. It’s something that’s had a profound impact on the companies that he operates. That said, Elon Musk’s engagement on Twitter is down, at least compared to the numbers he was hitting roughly a year ago. An engineer at the social media company suggested that the public has simply grown tired of the CEO’s shenanigans. Elon Musk fired him over the notion.

The Verge published a report earlier today where it shared details about the inner turmoil at Twitter. Since Elon Musk took over as the company’s CEO last year, he has fired a large portion of employees in order to cut costs, in addition to the ones that criticize his leadership. That was exactly the case with a top Twitter engineer that Musk was consulting with over his lower engagement numbers in recent months. According to the report, the engineer suggested that it could be because the public has lost interest in Musk’s antics. “You’re fired, you’re fired,” Musk reportedly said.

Musk is specifically concerned with the reach of his tweets, the report alleges. So much so that he is assigning engineers to track the number of times that his tweets are being recommended to Twitter users. Ironically, it’s easy to see the decreased engagement in Elon Musk’s tweets over the months by looking at their view count, which is a feature he introduced to the platform. His recent tweets have failed to hit the numbers that they did back in April of 2022, which was when he was at his peak popularity, according to Twitter engineers.

With how often Elon Musk is making headlines, it’s no surprise that there has been a waning interest in him over the past year. On that same note, it’s unfortunately no surprise that Musk fired an engineer over implying that his own behavior could be the root of his declining popularity.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_