Hacker Who Was in a Race Against Time to Fix Twitter Has Quit Instead

Geohot had previously volunteered to work on Twitter's search function for 12 weeks.

Many in the industry were shocked to learn that the software engineer known as "Geohot" had joined Twitter  (TWTR) - Get Free Report -- the man who skyrocketed to fame for jailbreaking restrictions on PlayStation 3 and later getting sued by Sony  (SNEJF)  once had a high-profile feud with Elon Musk when he told a Bloomberg reporter that the Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report founder "kept changing the terms" after tapping him for a job at Tesla.

Musk, in turn, called the ensuing story "extremely inaccurate" and the two went their separate ways. Hotz went on to found a startup promising to outdo Tesla in self-driving technology but stepped down as its CEO at the end of October 2022.

Two weeks after Musk took over Twitter in October, Hotz tweeted that he wanted to "put [my] money where my mouth is" and spend 12 weeks as an "intern" working to fix Twitter's search and scrolling functions. He had earlier defended Musk's much-criticized announcement that Twitter workers needed to either commit to working "long hours at high intensity" or take their severance pay.

The ultimatum, as well as Musk's general inconsistency on where he wants to take Twitter, prompted a wave of resignations at the social media company.

No More 'High-Intensity' Internship For Hotz

As of November 21, Hotz reported being hard at work recording pop-ups that come up when people use Twitter and its search functions without logging in. But despite the "high intensity" commitment, the pop-ups still come up as of late December.

On December 20, he publicly announced his resignation a third of the way through the self-created internship.

"Resigned from Twitter today," Hotz wrote in a Twitter post. "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!"

A day before, Hotz had asked his followers "whether [he] should step down as a Twitter intern" in a last-minute online poll mirroring the ones favored by Musk. The new Twitter head asked the public to vote on whether he should reinstate former President Donald Trump (he did after 51.8% voted yes) and, last weekend, whether he should step down as Twitter CEO.

After nearly 58% voted yes, Musk said that he would "resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job."

'Still Rooting For The Success Of Twitter 2.0'

Hotz, however, was less bound to the results of his poll. While 63.6% voted that he should fully put his money where his mouth once was and finish his time at Twitter, he still said that he was quitting in an announcement that was subject to a fair bit of online mockery.

"Show up, set a two-week expectation, tweet a lot for a month, don't ship a thing," software investor Tyler Hogge tweeted in reply to Hotz's announcement. "The new twitter seems a lot like the old."

While other users expressed wishes that this could serve as a "humbling experience" on how making changes is often harder than riling up a crowd, breaking things, and promising revolutions, Hotz doubled down on his support for Musk's vision for Twitter even as Musk committed to exiting.

"Still rooting for the success of Twitter 2.0!" Hotz wrote in one of the replies to his original post.