Elon Musk鈥檚 managerial bomb-throwing at Twitter has so thinned the ranks of software engineers who keep the world鈥檚 de-facto public square up and running that industry insiders and programmers who were fired or resigned this week agree: Twitter may soon fray so badly it could actually crash.
Musk ended a very public argument with nearly two dozen coders over his retooling of the microblogging platform earlier this week by ordering them fired. Hundreds of engineers and other workers then quit after he demanded they pledge to 鈥渆xtremely hardcore鈥 work by Thursday evening or resign with severance pay.
The newest departures mean the platform is losing workers just at it gears up for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which opens Sunday. It's one of Twitter's busiest events, when tweet surges heavily stress its systems.
鈥淚t does look like he鈥檚 going to blow up Twitter,鈥 said Robert Graham, a veteran cybersecurity entrepreneur. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 see how the lights won鈥檛 go out at any moment鈥 鈥 although many recently departed Twitter employees predicted a more gradual demise.
Hundreds of employees signaled they were leaving ahead of Thursday's deadline, posting farewell messages, a salute emoji or other familiar symbols on the company鈥檚 internal Slack messaging board, according to employees who still have access. Dozens also took publicly to Twitter to announce their departure.
Earlier in the week, some got so angry at Musk's perceived recklessness that they took to Twitter to insult the Tesla and Space X CEO. 鈥淜iss my ass, Elon,鈥 one engineer said, adding lipstick marks. She had been fired.
Twitter leadership sent an unsigned email after Thursday's deadline saying its offices would be closed and employee badge access disabled until Monday. No reason was given, according to two employees who got the email鈥 one who took the severance, one still on payroll. They spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.
A trusted phalanx of Tesla coders at his side as he ransacked a formerly convivial workspace, Musk didn't appear bothered.
鈥淭he best people are staying, so I'm not super worried,鈥 he But it soon became clear some crucial programming teams had been thoroughly gutted.
Indicating how strapped he is for programmers, Musk sent all-hands emails Friday summoning 鈥渁nyone who actually writes software鈥 to his command perch on Twitter鈥檚 10th floor at 2 p.m. 鈥 asking that they fly into San Francisco if not local, said the employee who quit Thursday but was still receiving company emails.
After taking over Twitter less than three weeks ago, Musk booted half of the company鈥檚 full-time staff of 7,500 and responsible for content moderation and other crucial efforts. Then came this week's ultimatum.
Three engineers who left this week described for The Associated Press why they expect considerable unpleasantness for now that well over two-thirds of Twitter's pre-Musk core services engineers are apparently gone. While they don鈥檛 anticipate near-term collapse, Twitter could get very rough at the edges 鈥 especially if Musk makes major changes without much off-platform testing.
Signs of fraying were evident before Thursday鈥檚 mass exit. People reported seeing more spam and scams on their feeds and in their direct messages. Engineers reported dropped tweets. People got strange error messages.
Still, nothing critical has broken. Yet.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a betting pool for when that happens,鈥 said one of the engineers, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Musk that could impact their careers and finances.
Another said that if Twitter has been shutting servers and 鈥渉igh volume suddenly comes in, it might start crashing.鈥
鈥淲orld Cup is the biggest event for Twitter. That鈥檚 the first thing you learn when you onboard at Twitter,鈥 he said.
With the earlier layoffs of curation employees, Twitter鈥檚 trending pages were already suffering. The engineering fireworks began Tuesday when Musk announced on Twitter that he had begun shutting down 鈥渕icroservices鈥 he considered unnecessary 鈥渂loatware.鈥
鈥淟ess than 20% are actually needed for Twitter to work!鈥 he tweeted.
That drew objections from engineers who told Musk he had no idea what he was talking about.
鈥淢icroservices are how most modern large web services organize their code to allow software engineers to work quickly and efficiently,鈥 said Gergely Orosz, author of the Pragmatic Engineer blog and a former Uber programmer. There are scores of such services and each manages a different feature. Instead of testing the removal of microservices in a simulated real-world environment, Musk鈥檚 team has apparently been updating Twitter live on everyone鈥檚 computers.
And indeed, one microservice briefly broke 鈥 the one people use to verify their identity to Twitter via SMS message when they log in. It鈥檚 called two-factor authentication.
鈥淵ou have hit the limit for SMS codes. Try again in 24 hours,鈥 Twitter advised when a reporter tried to download their microblogging history archive. Luckily, the email verification alternative worked.
One of the newly separated Twitter engineers, who had worked in core services, told the AP that engineering team clusters were down from about 15 people pre-Musk 鈥 not including team leaders, who were all laid off 鈥 to three or four before Thursday鈥檚 resignations.
Then more institutional knowledge that can鈥檛 be replaced overnight walked out the door.
鈥淓verything could break,鈥 the programmer said.
It takes six months to train someone to work an on-call rotation for some services, the engineers said. Such rotations require programmers to be available at all hours. But if the person on call is unfamiliar with the code base, failures could cascade as they frantically plow through reference manuals.
鈥淚f I stayed I would have been on-call constantly with little support for an indeterminate amount of time on several additional complex systems I had no experience in,鈥 , an engineer who took the severance.
鈥淩unning even relatively boring systems takes people who know where to go when something breaks,鈥 said Blaine Cook, Twitter鈥檚 founding engineer, who left in 2008. It鈥檚 dangerous to drastically reduce a programming workforce to a skeleton crew without first bulletproofing the code, he said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like saying, 鈥楾hese firefighters aren鈥檛 doing anything. So, we鈥檒l just fire them all.鈥欌
The engineers also worry Musk will shut down tools involved in content moderation and removing illicit material that people upload to Twitter 鈥 or that there simply wouldn鈥檛 be enough people on staff to run them properly.
Another concern is hackers. When they鈥檝e , diminishing damage depends on detecting them quickly and kicking them out.
It鈥檚 not clear how Musk鈥檚 housecleaning at Twitter has affected its cybersecurity team, which suffered a major PR black eye in August when the highly respected security chief fired by the company earlier this year, , filed a whistleblower complaint claiming the platform was a cybersecurity shambles.
鈥淪o much of the security infrastructure of a large organization like Twitter is in people鈥檚 heads,鈥 said Graham, the cybersecurity veteran. 鈥淎nd when they鈥檙e gone, you know, it all goes with them.鈥
___
AP Technology Writer Matt O鈥橞rien contributed to this report.
