Unable To Handle His Reduced Popularity, Musk Axes Twitter Eng'r

Elon Musk fired a top Twitter engineer who told him he was declining in popularity on the site, a recent report from the tech newsletter Platformer showed, Grace Kay disclosed to Business Insider.

Photo Insert: This is not the first time that Musk has fired an employee on the spot.

Musk met with several Twitter engineers on Tuesday to discuss his view count on Twitter, which had been on a downward spiral in recent months, Platformer reported.

The billionaire had previously assigned workers to look into whether his reach on the platform had been restricted due to a potential issue with Twitter's algorithm, according to the report.

"This is ridiculous," Musk told the employees, Platformer said, citing multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. "I have more than 100 million followers, and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions."

The employees showed Musk internal data and a Google Trends chart that indicated public interest in the billionaire was waning, Platformer reported.

Google Trends data shows his popularity peaked at a score of 100 in April — around the time he offered to buy Twitter — and has since dropped to a 9. This indicated the public was getting tired of Musk’s weird antics and his egomania.

When one of the engineers said Musk's popularity might be declining due to a lack of public interest since his Twitter purchase, Musk told the employee he was fired, according to Platformer.

The billionaire also told some employees to track how often his tweets are recommended on the site as he was unconvinced by the meeting that his view count had not been impacted by an internal issue, the publication said. It is not the first time that Musk has fired an employee on the spot.

Only a few weeks after taking Twitter private, Musk fired three Twitter employees that criticized him on social media.

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