Elon Musk brings Tesla engineers to Twitter who use entirely different programming language

Alex Kantrowitz

New Twitter owner Elon Musk is bringing engineers from his other businesses to work on the social network.
Insider previously reported that Tesla engineers are reviewing existing Twitter code. 
Tesla engineers have little experience designing for social media and use a different programming language, CNBC reported.

As the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk has been bringing in engineers from his other businesses to review code that runs the social media platform — but those he has tapped for the job have little to no experience in the arena and use a different programming language, CNBC reported. 

More than 50 Tesla workers, two Boring Company staff, and one Neuralink employee have been tapped to review code at the social media platform, with current Twitter employees telling CNBC that, to complete Musk’s review deadlines, they are pulling 12-hour shifts, seven days a week with no communication surrounding their compensation or job security.

Twitter, which runs using publicly-facing publishing and search engine functions, is developed in code written in Scala, a concise 18-year-old programming language, compared to Python, a 31-year-old programming language that Tesla engineers are currently using. 

One Tesla employee who was not participating in the Twitter code review told The Washington Post the company’s engineers would struggle to accurately assess existing code on the social platform, which runs using large-scale distributed systems that are outside their specialty.

The “idea of Elon being flanked by his Tesla engineers reviewing Twitter code is laughable,” the source, who was not authorized to discuss the topics on behalf of the company and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, told The Washington Post.

Current Twitter employees described to CNBC working unsustainable hours in an effort to prove their value despite looming job cuts, while two Tesla employees told the outlet they are feeling pressured to take on the additional work without extra pay. Since the acquisition, Musk has made sweeping executive layoffs and in negotiation talks with investors promised he will cut 75% of existing Twitter employees.

Musk and representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.