Musk fires more Twitter programmers – and sends a warning

On the eve of Thanksgiving, about 50 other Twitter engineers received an email saying they had been fired because their “code was unsatisfactory.” The recent layoffs come as a surprise to those affected, as Elon Musk said on Monday he was done with the layoffs. Thousands of employees have been or have been laid off since tech billionaire Musk took over the social network a month ago.

Like all the cancellation letters on Twitter in recent weeks, this one was also unsigned, writes the American journalist Zoë Schiffer of the technology service Platformer. The email simply stated, “As a result of the most recent code review, your code was found to be unsatisfactory and we regret to inform you that your employment with Twitter has been terminated with immediate effect.”

Dozens of others received warnings that they were underperforming. “The purpose of this written warning is to alert you to our concerns about the quality of your programming skills and to clarify the seriousness of the situation so that you can take immediate corrective action.” And further: “Note that failure to meet expectations may result in termination of your employment.”

On the career network LinkedIn, those affected report their abrupt dismissal:

Fired, brought back, now fired

One of the allegedly affected software developers writes that he was released in early November with a three-month severance package. Shortly after, it was brought back to document the existing source code. This makes it easier for other programmers to understand existing code. On Wednesday evening he was released without reason. But now he was only offered severance pay for four weeks.

Others report the same:

Those who have now been fired will receive one month’s severance pay. Her former colleagues, who acted immediately after Musk’s ultimatum, received three months’ severance pay.

Two weeks ago, Musk gave all remaining employees a choice: either overtime and the new hardcore company culture, or be fired with a three-month severance package. Those fired now have accepted Musk’s plight, but are in a much worse position than their colleagues who didn’t want to work for Twitter 2.0 from the start.

Reportedly, Musk’s ultimatum left mostly foreign workers with work visas who needed a job to stay in the US. Twitter users speculate that this is why not the best, but “the most desperate” remained. Musk is now getting rid of them.

Fired after code review

In late October, Musk brought dozens of Tesla software developers loyal to him to Twitter to conduct code reviews. A week ago Musk tweetedthat he left Twitter HQ at 1:30 AM after a code review. He also posted photos of the nightly code review.

Software developers said afterwards that the code review was less technical than they thought.

Among those now released also houses Ikuhiro Ihara, a longtime software developer who was instrumental in doubling the maximum tweet length from 140 to 280 characters. Ihara was fired after more than a decade on Twitter and “an overnight code review”, writes tech journalist Casey Newtonwho closely follows developments on Twitter.

Most recently, Musk mandated that Twitter engineers report on Fridays every week what they’ve been working on and what code they’ve written.

Twitter employees who have been laid off are fighting back against their former employer. A class action lawsuit has been filed in the US and in Germany some workers are organizing through the Verdi union.

(oli)