Who is Eric Frohnhoefer? Elon Musk FIRES Twitter app developer who publicly argued with new boss
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: Since purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk has let go of a wide range of professionals, including the board of directors as well as the Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal. The new boss has now fired the app developer, but this time through a tweet.
A post from Staff Software Engineer Eric Frohnhoefer disagreeing with Musk's apologies about the slowness of the Twitter app on Android smartphones sparked the conflict. Later, several users tagged Musk in Frohnhoefer's post, and the Tesla and Space X founder uncompromisingly stated, "He's fired."
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Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2022
The new boss of Twitter earlier wrote a message, "Btw, I’d like to apologize for Twitter being super slow in many countries. App is doing >1000 poorly batched RPCs just to render a home timeline!" Later the technical developer Frohnoefer took to Twitter and contradicted Chief Twit. He wrote, "I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong."
I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong. https://t.co/sh30ZxpD0N
— Eric Frohnhoefer @ 🏡 (@EricFrohnhoefer) November 13, 2022
The world's wealthiest guy then questioned him, "Then please correct me. What is the right number?" and enquired, "Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?" As responses to his Twitter discussion poured in, a user who chose to remain anonymous said, "I have been a developer for 20 years. And I can tell you that as the domain expert here you should inform your boss privately. Trying to one up him in public while he is trying to learn and be helpful makes you look like a spiteful self serving dev." Eric responded to this by tweeting, "Maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe using Slack or email." "with this kind of attitude, you probably don't want this guy on your team," another person responded and mentioned Musk in his tweet. The only thing Musk said in response to the same Twitter conversation was, "He's fired."
I have been a developer for 20 years. And I can tell you that as the domain expert here you should inform your boss privately.
— Money Nerd Techie (@pokemoniku) November 14, 2022
Trying to one up him in public while he is trying to learn and be helpful makes you look like a spiteful self serving dev.
Maybe he should ask questions privately. Maybe using Slack or email. 🤷♂️
— Eric Frohnhoefer @ 🏡 (@EricFrohnhoefer) November 14, 2022
"With this kind of attitude, you probably don't want this guy on your team 🤓"
— Lethal Labia (@coochisaurus) November 15, 2022
Frohnhoefer, who worked for Twitter for eight years, as per his Linkedin, tweeted a picture of his account locked and the words "Guess it is official now" this served as confirmation of his termination.
Guess it is official now. pic.twitter.com/5SRwotyD8J
— Eric Frohnhoefer @ 🏡 (@EricFrohnhoefer) November 14, 2022
Apart from firing several employees from Twitter, the new boss has made a number of decisions that have an effect on how Twitter, which has millions of active accounts, operates. The addition of the new USD 7.99 per month Blue subscription is one of the largest changes that Twitter is now experiencing. Musk's choice to enact the blue tick tax, however, did not sit well with everyone. Even some of the site's advertisers left, reported Live Mint.
Eric's Linkedin bio says he is an accomplished software engineer currently specializing in Android development. It is also mentioned that the engineer is focused on delivering delight by listening to customers, shipping iteratively, and thinking big. He joined Twitter in August 2014. His profile says that he previously worked in Raytheon where he "led the development of a secure redisplay client for Android." and in SAIC, he "developed and evaluated an Android port of the TENA Middleware." He was also a software engineer at Invertix.