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Elon Musk fired Twitter engineer over his waning popularity

Twitter owner Elon Musk has reportedly fired a Twitter engineer who told him he was losing popularity on the platform.

Sources in the company say the incident happened on Tuesday, February 7, when Musk held meetings with several engineers to discuss his view count on Twitter, which had been declining in recent months.

The tech newsletter The Platformer reported Musk saying: “This is ridiculous. I have more than 100 million followers, and I’m only getting tens of thousands of impressions.”

Read More: Elon Musk says Twitter is “trending to breakeven” after bankruptcy warnings

Twitter “view counts” is a new feature launched last December similar to Youtube views and LinkedIn impressions - to gauge the true reach of users’ posts.

The CEO had previously directed employees to investigate if his visibility on the social media site had been limited due to a potential problem with Twitter's algorithm.

A few days before, there was an experiment designed to test his engagement, where his account was made private, believing that could actually increase views.

Read More: More Elon Musk job cuts mean Twitter will have lowest headcount in a decade

He later unlocked it and said certain "issues" in the test had been detected and would be resolved.

Musk's dissatisfaction with the visibility appears to have continued, and when he raised his failed tweets at this week's meeting, he received a response that didn't sit well with him.

Platformer reported: “One of the company’s two remaining principal engineers offered a possible explanation for Musk’s declining reach.”

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When he said the reason for waning popularity is due to a lack of public interest since his Twitter takeover, Musk told him on the spot: “You’re fired, you’re fired.”

Another employee said: “When you’re asked a question, you run it through your head and say ‘what is the least fireable response I can have to this right now?'”

This isn't the first time Musk has fired an employee in short order.

The billionaire also fired three Twitter staffers who opposed him on social media just a few weeks after Twitter went private.

Source: Rolling Stone

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