Twitter has reportedly fired employees who criticised Elon Musk on an internal message board. Reports in the US suggest as many as 20 people were told their behaviour violated company policy and that their employment was being terminated.
The row appears to centre around tweets Mr Musk sent discussing the app's "slow" performance. Staff are said to have criticised these statements on Slack, a communications tool used internally at the company.
Earlier this week, a Twitter engineer who publicly disagreed with the billionaire’s tweets was said to have been laid off, with Mr Musk tweeting “he’s fired”. And he even appeared to mock those staff who were sacked, tweeting in reply to a link to the story: “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”
Some have suggested the move is at odds with Mr Musk's avowed dedication to free speech. The latest incident continues a tumultuous first few weeks in charge for Mr Musk, who has laid off half of Twitter’s workforce only to now be seeking to rehire some of them to plug staffing gaps.
The company’s attempt to introduce a new version of its Twitter Blue subscription package – giving users a verified blue tick badge if they pay £6.99 a month – has also been mired in confusion after it was launched, only to be pulled barely a day later. New grey “Official” badges to identify authentic, verified accounts have also been rolled out, taken down and then launched again in recent days, further adding to the confusion around the platform’s future.
Mr Musk has said Twitter needs more subscriptions to boost revenue and told staff last week that the collapse of the company was not out of the question if changes were not made.
