Why data engineering in particular?
Note that this is a leveraged buyout, where Twitter has taken on $13,000,000,000 in debt to support the buyout. A lot of this debt (at least $3 Billion) is unsecured-loans expected to be rated CCC or worse... a rating that yields 16% APY.
Overall, the debt is estimated to cost 10% and getting worse (as interest rates rise), suggesting a ~$1.3 Billion/year hole in Twitters finances right now.
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For better or worse, Elon Musk's only sane financial option is to fire huge swaths of the company. He's gotta find $1.3 Billion/year in costs and fix that. Firing thousands of engineers will get him... partially there.
Of course, Elon should have been trying to grow the company, but that seems a lot harder than just firing a ton of people.
I'm sure Elon is also a vindictive asshole, so he also probably wants to get back at the team who brought up Twitter's arguments for mDAU numbers in court. It doesn't matter if the team was right or wrong, they were against Elon and therefore are to be terminated. IMO anyway, that's my read on his psyche right now.
The fact that Elon can also "rationalize" it as a good business move is icing on the cake. He's really gotta cut costs to have any hopes of making this work.
Musk doing the full heel turn from "just let me work" engineer to the cost cutting MBA bro.
Clearly you don't know anyone at Twitter. This company is known for having the least productive workforce of any major techco. We're talking people pulling 10 hour work weeks. Additionally, cost cutting isn't the sole province of MBA bros. It's a basic reality of operating a company. Silicon Valley has really lost its mind during the free money era. Some of us don't even understand the basic realities of a business anymore.
No he isn't. Its a leveraged buyout.
Twitter owns the debt. Elon owns Twitter, but can let Twitter go bankrupt on its own and cut his losses.
As far as I can tell, Elon Musk is just invested at "getting back" at everyone who forced him to buy this company at way overpriced values. He's fired the CEO, CFO, Legal Team, and now the data-engineers who supported the legal team's arguments.
Its... like... actually really straightforward.
This assumption of bad faith is just terrible for HN, and the fact that you can't substantiate your argument doesn't breed much confidence in your assertions.
Musk's reputation is on the line without a doubt, and we can all point and say, "ha ha" if he fails. Otherwise...