Did Twitter create a system to boost Elon Musk's tweets
Elon Musk is not happy about his waning popularity on Twitter. Musk, who has over 125 million followers on the microblogging platform, has lately been obsessed with the engagement his posts are receiving. He even allegedly fired an engineer for that reason. Per Platformer, the remaining engineers of the company built a system to solve this issue and increase the CEO's impressions.
Why does this story matter?
There was a time when Musk's posts on Twitter raked in views and likes. However, the past few weeks have seen the number going down. The Twitter CEO believed that the issue is technical, and he wanted his engineers to resolve it. Musk, in the past, has criticized Twitter for promoting some users and not others.
James Musk sent an emergency message to Twitter employees
On Monday morning, Twitter employees received a message on Slack from James Musk, Elon's cousin. It read, "We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform." He added that the issue is "high urgency" and asked anyone who can help to "thumbs up" the post. When sleep-deprived engineers logged into their laptops, they understood the nature of the emergency.
What was the emergency?
US President Joe Biden's tweet about supporting his wife in rooting for the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl was the cause of commotion at Twitter. While Biden's tweet generated around 29 million impressions, Musk's tweet about supporting the Eagles generated slightly over 9.1 million impressions. The Twitter CEO later deleted his tweet in frustration.
Musk fired an engineer last week
That wasn't the first time Musk had an issue with the engagement of his posts. Last week, Platformer reported that he fired one of Twitter's two principal engineers for suggesting that Musk's tweets were not as popular because people are no longer that interested in what he says. This triggered Musk, who said, "you're fired, you're fired."
Roughly 80 engineers worked on fixing Musk's waning engagement
Infuriated by his loss to the US President, Musk flew to San Francisco and met his employees in person. He asked them to fix the issue. Failure to do so would have resulted in their termination. Fixing Musk's engagement-related issues became the new number-one priority. Around 80 engineers worked on the project through the night.
Musk's posts were boosted by a factor of 1,000
The efforts of the engineers did not go in vain. They came up with a fix. According to Plaformer, Twitter deployed a code to let Musk's tweets automatically bypass Twitter's filters designed to show people the best possible content. The code artificially boosted Musk's tweets by a factor of 1,000, ensuring that his tweets ranked higher than anyone else's in the feed.
Musk acknowledged the update with a meme
Post the update, Musk's tweets and replies dominated Twitter. This led to users complaining about seeing him all the time. Musk himself acknowledged the new development with a "bottle feeding" meme. He also asked users to wait until the company makes "adjustments" to the algorithm. However, that does not mean a complete reversal. Instead, the factor is now lower than 1,000.
Musk seems to agree that his tweets are force-fed
Musk might step down by the end of 2023
Meanwhile, Musk said that he might step down as CEO of Twitter by the end of 2023. Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, he said he needs to ensure that Twitter is financially healthy before he leaves. "I'm guessing probably towards the end of the year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company," he added.
Musk jokingly posted a photo of his dog as CEO
Musk did not say who would replace him as the CEO. But after the interview, he jokingly posted a photo of his dog Floki sitting at a desk wearing a CEO t-shirt. The caption reads, "The new CEO of Twitter is amazing." According to various reports, the search for a new CEO has been ongoing for a while now.
