Elon Musk ‘fired Twitter staff for criticising him’

17 November 2022, 11:54

Reports in the US suggest as many as 20 employees have been laid off for questioning Mr Musk’s approach.

A number of Twitter staff have reportedly been fired for criticising Elon Musk on internal employee message boards.

As many as 20 employees have been told that their behaviour violated company policy and that their employment was being terminated immediately.

According to reports in the US, a number of staff had criticised or questioned Mr Musk’s recent tweets about the Twitter app’s “slow” performance on Slack, a messaging platform used officially by staff inside Twitter.

Earlier this week, a Twitter engineer who publicly disagreed with the billionaire’s tweets was said to have been laid off, with Mr Musk tweeting “he’s fired”.

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

Mr Musk even appeared to mock those staff who were fired, tweeting in reply to a link to the story: “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”

Critics of the Tesla and SpaceX boss have suggested the removal of staff who disagree with his opinions contradicts his claim that he strongly supports free speech and wants to allow more of it on Twitter.

The latest incident continues a tumultuous first few weeks in charge for Mr Musk, who has laid off half of Twitter’s workforce only to now be seeking to rehire some of them to plug staffing gaps.

The company’s attempt to introduce a new version of its Twitter Blue subscription package – giving users a verified blue tick badge if they pay £6.99 a month – has also been mired in confusion after it was launched, only to be pulled barely a day later.

New grey “Official” badges to identify authentic, verified accounts have also been rolled out, taken down and then launched again in recent days, further adding to the confusion around the platform’s future.

Mr Musk has said Twitter needs more subscriptions to boost revenue and told staff last week that the collapse of the company was not out of the question if changes were not made.

Some safety experts have raised concerns that giving a verified account badge to any account willing to pay for it will help bad actors spread misinformation.

The Twitter boss has now said the relaunch of the Blue subscription has been pushed back until the end of the month “to make sure that it is rock solid”.

By Press Association