“Ridiculous”: Elon Musk Fires Employee Over Falling Engagement On Tweets

Twitter boss Elon Musk is not happy with the falling engagement on his tweets and has fired an employee after he did not like the explanation he gave, according to a report in The Verge. Mr Musk has been trying several new things, including making his account private for a day, to test whether that might boost the number of his followers. The move was a result of complaints from several users who said changes to Twitter had reduced their reach, the outlet further said.

He gathered a team of engineers and advisors to find the reason behind the falling engagement. The Verge report said he called the issue “ridiculous” and added, “I have more than 100 million followers, and I’m only getting tens of thousands of impressions.”

One of the engineers offered a possible explanation that the public interest in his tweets is waning. The engineer also showed data from Google Trends, which showed that compared to last April – when his popularity was at a peak of 100 – he is at a score of nine.

The engineer also said there is no evidence that Twitter’s algorithm was biased against him. But Mr Musk did not take the news well.

“You’re fired, you’re fired,” Musk told the engineer, according to the outlet.

Mr Musk has instructed engineers to track how many times each of his tweets are recommended, one employee told The Verge.

Fortune, which also reported about the development, said Twitter has so far not commented on the development.

As per Twitter data, tweets from Mr Musk routinely get millions of views. But the views represent a fraction of Mr Musk’s 128 million followers, said the Fortune report.

In November, the Twitter CEO fired several employees who criticized him after he bought the micro-blogging platform for $44 billion. A report in New York Times (NYT) said Mr Musk fired nearly two dozen Twitter employees who had pushed back publicly and privately against him.