The decreasing size of Twitter’s personnel, which is said to be down to 2,300 from 7,500 when new owner Elon Musk assumed control, has received a lot of attention. Many people are concerned about the random ways the firm has been downsized. For instance, Insider reported on Friday that Twitter’s payroll division was completely decimated last week when employees chose to resign after receiving a stern ultimatum from Musk.
The security hacker George Hotz has apparently joined Musk’s team
The security hacker George Hotz, who is known for creating iOS jailbreaks and disassembling the PlayStation 3 before founding Comma.ai, a startup that develops driver assistance systems that aim to give other cars functionality similar to Tesla Autopilot, has apparently just joined Musk’s team on a temporary basis. Hotz most certainly belongs to the group of individuals who wouldn’t appear on your Twitter bingo board.
Musk and Hotz got into an argument after Musk allegedly tried to hire Hotz at Tesla but “kept changing the terms,” according to Hotz’s 2015 interview with Bloomberg. Hotz then founded Comma.ai.
Tesla at the time referred to Hotz’s audacious statements that his technology may surpass Autopilot as “very implausible.”
So why collaborate now? For starters, Hotz currently has some more free time. According to an early this month TechCrunch report, Hotz believes that some of his own work at Comma.ai is currently finished. It currently offers a $1,999 driver assistance system developer kit that works with more than 200 vehicles. According to him, the company is also well-positioned to turn its devkit into a finished consumer product.
“I’m good at things when it’s wartime”
The momentum gives him a little space to explore. “I’m good at things when it’s wartime,” Hotz told TechCrunch for that story. “I’m not so good at hands-on, ok, let’s patiently scale this up. ‘Do you want to deal with a supply chain that’s capable of making 100,000 devices a year?’ Like, not really.”
Hotz, now 33, may also want to again prove his mettle to Musk. Indeed, last week, after tweeting out his support of Musk’s offer to Twitter employees (Musk said they could work “long hours at high intensity” or take three months of severance), Hotz further tweeted that he would be “down for a 12-week internship at Twitter for the cost of living in SF.”