Elon Musk recently fired two Twitter engineers who criticised him on the social network, and then put out sarcastic tweets about them.
In a tweet responding to an account named Unusual Whales, Musk said he wanted to "apologise" for "firing these geniuses".
"Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere," the Twitter boss said.
One of those sacked by Musk is Eric Frohnhoefer, who called one this tweets "wrong".
I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong. https://t.co/sh30ZxpD0NRelated stories
— Eric Frohnhoefer (@EricFrohnhoefer) November 13, 2022
Musk asked Frohnhoefer to correct him. "Twitter is super slow on Android. What have you done to fix that?" he added.
Elon Musk publicly punishes Twitter engineers who call him out online
The back-and-forth went on for some time on Sunday. The next day, Musk tweeted that Frohnhoefer had been sacked. His tweet, re tweeted by Frohnhoefer, has since been deleted.
https://t.co/YpaQysrIv0— Eric Frohnhoefer (@EricFrohnhoefer) November 14, 2022
Another engineer, Ben Lieb, said he was also sacked after he put out a tweet criticising Musk.
"As the former tech lead for timelines infrastructure at Twitter, I can confidently say this man has no idea what he is talking about," Lieb had written on Monday.
After firing the engineers, Musk was asked if he "felt bad about" Rahul Ligma, a man who had pulled off a prank last month, posing as a sacked Twitter employee outside the company's San Francisco headquarters.
Ligma had a partner in the prank -- a man who identified himself as Daniel Johnson.
Musk said Ligma & Johnson "are welcome back anytime".
He took the joke a step further, posting a photo with them with the Twitter logo in the background.
Welcoming back Ligma & Johnson! pic.twitter.com/LEhXV95Njj— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022
"Important to admit when I’m wrong and firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes," he tweeted on Tuesday.
Musk has drawn criticism for initiating wide-ranging layoffs just days after completing his acquisition of Twitter.
He cut nearly 50 percent of the company's 7,500-strong staff. Employees reported how they were suddenly logged out of company's accounts.
Twitter's contractual staff has also been massively cut.
Also read: Twitter contract workers learn they have been fired by reading tweets of others
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