Elon Musk has fired at least 20 Twitter employees who criticised his actions on Twitter or on the internal messaging platform Slack, and some were fired simply for retweeting posts criticising the new Twitter CEO.
Musk, who has laid off approximately 3,800 full-time employees and over 5,000 contractual workers, is also removing anyone who dares to criticise him.
According to Platformer’s Casey Newton, the number of those fired is closer to 20. Software engineer and tech writer Gergely Orosz tweeted that around 10 people have been fired for speaking out against Musk internally.
“For those saying that criticising should be done in private: I have reports for a number of employees similarly terminated the past 24 hours who were criticising Musk’s tweet on an internal Slack watercooler channel. Some criticised other eng leaders. Ten people, as I hear,” Orosz tweeted.
“Employees say it appears that around 20 people have been fired so far for their Slack posts”, Newton wrote.
Musk has confirmed firing Twitter employee Eric Frohnhoefer, who publicly corrected him on the microblogging platform.
After the developer tweeted that “maybe Musk should ask questions privately,” a Twitter user commented in the thread that Musk probably didn’t want Frohnhoefer on his team, to which the Twitter CEO replied, “He’s fired.”
Even those who simply retweeted Musk’s criticism were kicked out.
According to Protocol, Elon has fired numerous employees who were critical of him on Twitter and the company’s Slack.
Musk responded late Tuesday: “I would like to apologise for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere”.