Why Elon Musk Now Fires Employees Every Day
"There are too many MBAs running America" - Elon Musk
Elon Musk is a ruthless savage when firing his employees.
Last year Elon wielded his power as the new owner of Twitter axing 6000 employees including HR workers, marketers, and even a handful of high-ranking executives. Not stopping there, he further tapered the team by terminating dozens of software engineers.
So let me get this straight: Step one: Fire all the useless people.
Step two: Fire all the useful people, too.
I have nothing against marketing and HR/ They're both necessary cogs in the machine, but Elon deciding to sacrifice his engineer's livelihoods has bitten him in the ass like no other.
Many of the Twitter employees he fired moved straight to Facebook to work on Mark Zuckerburg's "Threads."
Talk about irony.
The Elon Dumpster Fire
Let me put this into perspective: if Threads came out before Elon acquired Twitter it would be laughed at for being the pathetic knockoff that it is. Twitter is so chaotic (even a year after Elon acquired it) that some other Silicon Valley company can kick out an imitation and receive a warm reception.
Is any of this Elon's fault? No. Maybe?
But you can't ignore the downwright ugly Twitter firing spree, especially when Elon made sardonic quips like this:
You can't tell me those ex-Twitter employees didn't say things like, "Elon is going to regret firing us" or "We're going to kill it with our own product."
For now, Meta execs are alleging that "No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee." This doesn't close the case, however, that any ex-Twitter people helped consult or contribute in any way.
'Competition is Fine, Cheating is Not'
A lot of important tech people aren't happy about Threads.
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 7 Twitter clones."
Flying cars are a terrible idea, Jack. Road rage in a flying car will fall down and explode a building.
Anyway, Elon's reaction to Threads seems based on the fact that he fired so many good engineers. But it matters little because Threads is still a mess:
- No desktop version
- Unavailable in the EU
Learn from Elon: think about decisions before you make them... even though they probably feel a lot of fun in the moment.
Elon's New Philosophy for Firing
Elon is no stranger to ruthless corporate efficiency, and let's be real, it has worked for him in the past.
He infamously fired SpaceX's Starlink project managers for being "too slow." Jeff Bezos quickly scooped them up. Starlink now has 1600+ satellites in orbit and is ready to start providing global internet service while Jeff Bezos is still years away from launching a single satellite.
It makes sense why Bezos threw some shade over the recent Twitter deal.
Regardless, when you implement a scorched Earth mentality in the workplace, it will eventually come back and bite you in the ass.
It's why I would not be surprised if ex-Twitter workers did play a part in the creation of Threads: That said, there are countless stories of SpaceX employees saying they'd rather work for nobody else but Elon.
The guy sets the bar with his actions. That's why his employees working 80+ hour weeks gladly suffer, seeing their boss clocking in 100+ hours.
Does that kind of philosophy work in the social media industry? Who knows. Maybe not. But it's interesting to watch him try.
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