‘You’re a jack***’: Elon Musk loses cool at former Twitter employee for questioning him

Former Twitter engineer Ian Brown spoke up during a voice chat hosted by renowned hacker George Hotz on Twitter Spaces, only to receive criticism from the company's current CEO, Elon Musk.
 
Twitter CEO reportedly told Ian Brown, a Netflix developer who worked at Twitter for eight years before leaving in October 2021, "You're a jack***," according to the New York Post. The argument broke out during a voice chat on Twitter Spaces on Wednesday that was moderated by hacker George Hotz.
 
When Musk mentioned that the bird app would have to be completely rewritten to achieve such high velocity, Ian joked that the billionaire should explain the stack.
 
“Well, when you say a total rewrite, you mean starting with the skeleton?” the host, Geroge Hotz, then interjected. “Or a bunch of engineers sit down with a whiteboard and say, ‘What is Twitter?’ Revolution or reform?”
 
Musk responded slowly, saying Twitter could "either try to amend the crazy stack that exists, or rewrite it."
 
Ian Brown then questioned him, “When you say crazy stack, what do you mean? Break it down,” It eventually became a heated conversation later.
 
“Are you... Who are you?” Musk asked Brown, who said in return, “What do you mean who am I? I don't know, you gave me the f***ing mic.”
 
“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?” the former Twitter employee again asked Musk to answer.
 
Musk got agitated and he said, “So first off, amazing. Wow. You're a jackass.”
 
“Haha, ok! I got no credibility here, buddy,” Brown gave it back before he was muted by the host. Musk fired one last shot at him, calling him a "moron."
 
Musk changed many things at the social media behemoth after purchasing Twitter for $44 billion earlier this year, starting with the resignation of CEO Parag Agrawal. He also made significant changes to Twitter's blue check verification system and fired nearly half of the company's employees.
 
Musk's Twitter experiments have enraged some Tesla investors.