Software engineer and security researcher George Hotz has resigned from Twitter, a mere four weeks into his 12-week internship.
Hotz originally joined a month ago as an intern, seeing an opportunity to help Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk overhaul the social media service. But on Tuesday, Hotz announced that he had stepped down from his position.
“Appreciate the opportunity, but didn’t think there was any real impact I could make there. Besides, it was sad to see my GitHub withering. Back to coding!” Hotz wrote in a tweet.
The resignation occurs as Musk has been abruptly rolling out and then sometimes reversing controversial changes at Twitter, which has caused some users and advertisers to leave. This has included introducing and then rescinding a policy to block users from posting links to rival social media services, while also briefly suspending several journalists.
On Tuesday night, both Hotz and Musk held an online chat on Twitter Spaces going over the drama facing the social media company and various related topics. In the recording, Musk elaborated on his recent decision-making, saying Twitter is facing a financial crisis. “We have an emergency fire drill on our hands. That’s the reason. Not because I’m naturally capricious.”
According to him, the company is currently losing about $3 billion “in negative cash flow per year” under current conditions. “This company is basically like you’re in a plane that is headed toward the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work,” he added.
Musk also noted advertisers remain resistant to spending on Twitter due to the ongoing economic downturn. But he company is starting to turn things around with the help of the new paid Twitter Blue subscription, he said.
“I now think Twitter will in fact be okay next year,” he added. “I think we will be, hopefully, sort of roughly, cash flow break even. That’s what I expect for next year.”
During Musk’s tenure at Twitter, he’s also been cutting costs, including laying off and firing over half of the staff. The same cost-cutting may have also led to Hotz’s abrupt resignation. In the chat session, Hotz noted the quality of food at Twitter’s offices had taken a dive. “The food’s a lot worse than it was—a lot worse” he said.
In response, Musk said: “We may have gone too far in the cost-cutting with respect to the lunch. We can fix it.”