Elon Musk's sarcastic tweet about sacking 'genius' Twitter workers has spectacularly backfired

Elon Musk's old tweets about slashing the workforce at Twitter have spectacularly backfired.

The tech billionaire has been regularly making headlines since acquiring Twitter in October last year.

And the chairman of the bird app marked his takeover in 2022 with a series of layoffs.

Musk confirmed his decision on Twitter after being called out for reportedly firing employees who had been critical of him on Twitter and the company's Slack, an instant messaging platform used by professional organisations.

While Musk didn't address the claims directly, he sarcastically responded to the layoffs on his own platform, tweeting: "I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses."

"Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere," Musk continued in his tweet from November 2022.

Now fast forward to July 2023 when Meta Platforms, Mark Zuckerberg's company owning and operating Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, introduced Threads, a microblogging social channel aiming to offer users a similar experience to Twitter.

Twitter

And Twitter has faced some criticism in the wake of Musk's takeover and his subsequent changes in moderations policies, including declaring that 'cis' and 'cisgender' — terms describing those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth — would be considered slurs on the platform.

Officially launched on July 5 in 100 countries, Threads has reached 30 million users as of yesterday morning (6 July) according to Zuckerberg, which poses a serious threat to Musk's blue app.

Which is where the billionaire's original tweet about firing Twitter employees has turned into a cosmic payback, according to some users.

And independent analyst, Oliver Alexander, took to the platform to share Musk's November 2022 tweet in a side-by-side image with the apparent cease-and-desist letter Twitter's lawyer has sent to Zuckerberg following Threads' official launch.

"How it started. How it's going." the post says.

Twitter

The letter claims that Thread had hired former Twitter employees to work on the app.

Though there hasn't been an official confirmation as to whether any former Twitter employees have been working on Threads, it feels entirely possible that Musk's original tweet became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

UNILAD has previously reached out to Twitter and Meta about this claim.

Whether or not the microblogging social media war turns into a lawsuit remains to be seen, though there is also the upcoming 'cage match' between Musk and Zuckerberg to watch out for.

In the meantime, Threads users have been left horrified when discovering that they wouldn't be able to delete their profiles unless they say goodbye to their Instagram accounts in the process too.