Featured Image Credit: Twitter / REUTERS / Alamy S
Topics: Twitter, Elon Musk, Technology
Emily Brown
American hacker George Hotz has decided to throw in the towel at Twitter after just four weeks - and Elon Musk might not be far behind him.
Hotz, who is known for becoming the first person to remove the SIM lock on an iPhone when he was just 17 years old, confirmed last month that he'd been hired by Musk with two goals in mind.
In the space of 12 weeks, the hacker was tasked with fixing Twitter's search function and fixing the popup that users get if they scroll Twitter without being logged in to the site.
He confirmed his employment on 19 November, but just almost exactly a month later he announced his departure from the company.
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In a post earlier this week (20 December), Hotz wrote: "Resigned from Twitter today. 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!"
GitHub is an IT service management company where developers can contribute to an open source community regarding the future of software.
Hotz's post received hundreds of likes and responses, one of which asked him whether he had 'any regrets' about his experience with the company.
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To which the hacker responded: "Nah, it is what it is. Still rooting for the success of Twitter 2.0!"
Hotz also indicated he wouldn't be sharing any juicy details about the company as he told another user he'd shared his observations 'with the appropriate people, not the public'.
The 33-year-old put himself forward for the internship after showing support for Musk's visions for Twitter when it emerged the CEO had sent an email in the middle of the night saying employees would need to be 'extremely hardcore' and work 'long hours at high intensity'.
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In the wake of the news, Hotz wrote on Twitter: "This is the attitude that builds incredible things. Let all the people who don’t desire greatness leave.”
The hacker said he was willing to put his money where his mouth was, and the post caught the attention of Musk who replied: "let’s talk.”
Musk himself only took control of Twitter in October, but on Wednesday (21 December) he announced that he would 'resign as CEO as soon as [he finds] someone foolish enough to take the job'.
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Musk made clear that he wouldn't leave the company altogether, but instead would 'just run the software and servers teams'.