Twitter CEO Elon Musk blasted a former software engineer for the company as a “jackass” during a heated spat over the mogul’s push to revamp the embattled social media app.
Musk said Twitter would have to do a “total rewrite of the whole thing” if it wanted to have a “really high velocity” during a Twitter Spaces voice chat hosted by George Hotz on Wednesday.
The remark prompted a response from Ian Brown, a developer for Netflix who worked at Twitter for eight years before leaving the company in October 2021.
“Wait, seriously, a total rewrite? That’s your prediction for velocity?” Brown said.
“Yeah,” Musk responded.
“Well, when you say a total rewrite, you mean starting with the skeleton?” asked Hotz, a well-known hacker who resigned from Twitter earlier in the day. “Or a bunch of engineers sit down with a whiteboard and say, ‘What is Twitter?’ Revolution or reform?”
Brown responded with a “laughing hysterically” emoji, which appeared briefly on his avatar as part of the function that allows Twitter Space participants to express themselves while someone else is talking.
Musk replied that “you either needed to amend the crazy stack that exists or rewrite it.”
Brown chimed in once again, grilling Musk over what he actually meant and whether he could “break it down.”
“Who are you?!” an agitated Musk asked.
“What do you mean who am I? I don’t know! You gave me the f—ing mic!” Brown said.
Hotz then interjected, noting that he allowed Brown the opportunity to speak and asked that the conversation be “more civil.”
“I mean, man, you’re in charge of the servers and the programming and whatever,” Brown continued.
“What is the stack, Elon? Take me from top to bottom. What does the stack look like right now? What’s so crazy about it? What is so abnormal about this stack versus every other large-scale system on the planet, buddy? C’mon!”
“Amazing! You’re a jackass!” Musk replied.
“Haha, ok! I got no credibility here, buddy,” Brown shot back.
Hotz then muted Brown.
“Good! What a moron,” Musk said.
