Just one day after the launch of Ron DeSantis’ US presidential campaign on the platform experienced technical challenges, a top engineering official at Twitter has announced his retirement from the firm. After almost four years of service to the firm, Foad Dabiri, who had worked as the technical lead for Twitter’s growth department, announced his decision through Twitter, explaining that he had “decided to leave the nest.” Dabiri had been employed by Twitter for nearly four years. The beginning of Ron DeSantis’ run for president was marred by technical difficulties caused by Twitter’s livestreaming, which was broadcasting the event.
This episode comes after a string of personnel cutbacks at Twitter, where over 80 percent of workers have been let go since Elon Musk acquired the company.
Dabiri recognised the transforming aspect of the firm by highlighting the diverse periods that he had experienced before and after Elon Musk’s takeover of the business last year. He underscored the difficulties that were encountered during the process by referring to the upgrade to Twitter’s “2.0” as “massive and rapid,” and he said that this was an accurate description of the changeover.
Although Dabiri could not disclose specific reasons for his leaving or specify whether it was linked to the technological failures that occurred during the DeSantis event, he did express gratitude for working with Elon Musk and for the opportunity to observe how Musk’s beliefs and vision affect the future of the firm. When the BBC inquired more about Dabiri’s departure, neither Dabiri nor Twitter made any further remarks.
Due to technical difficulties with the livestream on Twitter, Ron DeSantis’ campaign launch got off to a late start. As a consequence, a considerable number of Twitter users logged out of the service before the event started in earnest, which caused the announcement to be missed by those users. Within the Republican Party, Ron DeSantis, the current governor of Florida and a possible contender for the general election in 2024, is viewed as a key challenger to Donald Trump, who served as President of the United States before.
In October, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased Twitter for a staggering $44 billion. Musk recognised the difficulties involved in decreasing the staff after purchasing the firm from around 8,000 people to about 1,500 in a recent interview with the BBC. Since taking over as CEO of Twitter, Musk has been responsible for a considerable number of layoffs, which have included engineers who were responsible for site operations and technical debugging.
Despite the technical difficulties, Ron DeSantis’ team promptly responded, claiming that the interruption was due to extreme enthusiasm and that the online event had brought in $1 million in just one hour. Although there were more than 600,000 people listening to the Twitter broadcast when it first began, that number had dropped to fewer than 300,000 by the time the event was completed.
During the webcast, Ron DeSantis emphasised his conservative credentials and highlighted his approach to dealing with the COVID-19 problem in Florida, which adopted an anti-lockdown posture that was welcomed by many Republicans. DeSantis also highlighted his approach to handling the situation in Georgia, which embraced a pro-lockdown attitude that was applauded by many Democrats.
