Musk asks Twitter engineers build algorithm that 'forces engagement on all users to hear only his voice'

15 February 2023

When President Joe Biden's tweet about the Super Bowl received a higher number of impressions than Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk's tweet about the widely anticipated annual playoff game, the billionaire "demanded answers from his team," Platformer reports.

Per Platformer, Musk almost immediately flew his private jet to San Francisco-based Twitter headquarters, called in "roughly 80 people," in person, to "investigate various hypotheses about why Musk’s tweets weren’t reaching as many people as he thought they should and testing out possible solutions."

James Musk, cousin to Elon Musk, according to Platformer, messaged a Slack thread of Twitter engineers at nearly 3:00 am the next morning saying, "We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform," James Musk said in the team's Slack message thread. "Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post."

Biden's tweet saw nearly 20 million more impressions than Musk's.

Platformer reports:

Employees worked through the night investigating various hypotheses about why Musk’s tweets weren’t reaching as many people as he thought they should and testing out possible solutions.

This comes after Platformer reported last week that Musk "fired one of two remaining principal engineers at the company after the engineer told him that views on his tweets are declining in part because interest in Musk has declined in general."

Engineers suggested the social media platform's users may have missed Musk's tweet "because he’d been blocked and muted by so many people in recent months."

However, after Musk's Super Bowl tweet flop, top team leaders advised the engineers "if the engagement issue wasn’t 'fixed,' they would all lose their jobs."

Platformer reports:

By Monday afternoon, “the problem” had been “fixed.” Twitter deployed code to automatically “greenlight” all of Musk’s tweets, meaning his tweets will bypass Twitter’s filters designed to show people the best content possible. The algorithm now artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000 – a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed.

His tweets the following day generated nearly 43 million impressions, and now, an internal source confirmed to Platformer, "over 90 percent of Musk’s followers now see his tweets."

Giving the impression the changes may be temporary, Musk tweeted, “Please stay tuned while we make adjustments to the uh .… "algorithm."

"He bought the company, made a point of showcasing what he believed was broken and manipulated under previous management, then turns around and manipulates the platform to force engagement on all users to hear only his voice,” said a current employee. "I think we’re past the point of believing that he actually wants what’s best for everyone here."

Platform's report is available to read at this link.

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