Elon Musk fires Twitter engineer who 'corrected' him about RPCs
Elon Musk is not done axing Twitter employees. Unlike when he fired roughly 50% of the company or thousands of contractors, it's a single employee this time. The employee in question is Eric Frohnhoefer. He came into the limelight after he publicly called out Musk on Twitter. Guess what the new CEO did? He announced via a tweet that Frohnhoefer has been fired.
Why does this story matter?
Musk's approach to running Twitter has come into question ever since he took over the company. Many believe that his 'horse in a hospital' approach to running Twitter might lead to the company's downfall. The new saga surrounding an employee calling him out could have been handled better by both sides. But as things stand, the equation between Musk and his employees isn't great.
Frohnhoefer called out Musk for his RPC claim
Musk took to Twitter to apologize for the platform being slow in many countries. In his tweet, he attributed this to poorly batched RPCs (remote procedure calls). Frohnhoefer, a software engineer who had worked on Twitter's Android app, called out Musk and said that his new boss is wrong about RPCs. According to him, "apps don't make RPC calls."
He said that Musk was wrong
Employee's response to Musk received a mixed bag of reactions
The app developer's brazen reply to the new owner-cum-CEO invited different kinds of reactions from Twitterati. Many appreciated him correcting his employer, while others had a different opinion. Some were of the opinion that Frohnhoefer should have corrected Musk in private than on a public platform such as Twitter. It is under one such reaction that we found that Musk fired the employee.
'He's fired,' said Musk
A user called @pokemoniku replied to Frohnhoefer saying he should have talked to Musk privately. "Trying to one-up him in public while he is trying to learn and be helpful makes you look like a spiteful self-serving dev," he added. Another user said, "With this kind of attitude, you probably don't want this guy on your team." To this, Musk replied, "He's fired."
Musk confirmed the axing via a tweet
Frohnhoefer called the Twitter management 'a bunch of cowards'
Frohnhoefer's Twitter bio now reads "formerly @Twitter." This confirms that he has indeed been axed. Talking to Forbes about his dismissal, he said that he didn't receive any formal communications from the company. He called the management "a bunch of cowards." About the current status at Twitter, he said, "no one trusts anyone within the company anymore."
