John Paul M. Joaquin Tech 02.15.2023 03:Feb AM EST

Elon Musk Asked Twitter Engineers To Boost His Tweets’ Engagement

Elon Musk is not happy that someone else's Super Bowl tweet is getting more attention than his.

The Big Twit himself reportedly had Twitter's engineers create a system to artificially boost the engagement of his tweets, making them stand out more.

Twitter users previously complained that their "For You" feeds were suddenly filled with tweets from Musk regardess of whether they were following him or not, per Engadget.

Elon Musk's Twitter Engagement Envy

Twitter employees mentioned in interviews with Platformer that the company's engineers built a system that exclusively benefited Musk following President Biden's tweet gaining more engagement than his.

According to the message Musk urgently sent to Twitter engineers on the night of Feb. 12, he wants them to debug an issue with engagement across Twitter's platform as soon as possible, per The Verge. He also made sure to tag "@here" in the company's Slack to guarantee that anyone online would see it.

Unfortunately, instead of something platform-breaking, the issue was that Musk's tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than President Biden's.

Both Musk and President Biden chose to support the Philadelphia Eagles, expressing them in tweets. However, President Biden's tweet got nearly 29 million impressions, while Musk's acquired a little more than 9.1 million before deleting his tweet in frustration.

Interestingly, Musk's deputies stated to Twitter's engineers that Musk would fire them if they didn't work on "debugging" the issue. After the game, he reportedly flew his private jet to the Bay Area, where Twitter's San Francisco office is, to speak to his team in person regarding his order.

Twitter's engineers then worked through the night to create a system that allowed Musk to receive increased promotion on his tweets above other users "by a factor of 1,000." They also created new code that automatically "greenlights" all of Musk's tweets, allowing them to bypass Twitter's filters that would usually keep one particular account from flooding the entire feed.

The result is that Musk's tweets were prominently shown in people's "For You" algorithmic feed worldwide regardless of whether they follow him on Twitter or not. Musk confirmed the "problem" himself, with him tweeting that the company would "make adjustments" to the platform's algorithm.

Musk's Declining Public Interest

Although an unintended effect, Twitter's engineers did find out why Musk's engagement is slowly declining on Twitter. According to the platform's engineering team, Musk's engagement might have been reduced because he'd been blocked and muted by so many people in recent months.

It is no secret that many people found Musk's antics following his takeover of Twitter as "unappealing" filtering him out of their feeds as a result.

This fact is also combined with the more legitimate reasons why Musk's engagement is low: he was a victim of Twitter's system that had historically promoted tweets from users whose posts perform better to both followers and non-followers in the For You tab.

Musk's recent antics follow his move to fire one of two remaining top Twitter engineers after they explained why he had low engagements on the platform.