- Elon Musk dismissed David Sacks from a meeting he said was "too technical," The Verge reported.
- Sacks is a longtime friend of Musk who has assisted in his Twitter takeover.
- Engineers told The Verge that Musk did not appear to understand the structure of Twitter or its tech.
Elon Musk dismissed longtime friend David Sacks from a Twitter meeting he dubbed "too technical" for the entrepreneur, according to a recent report from The Verge.
During a meeting with Twitter engineers two days ahead of his $44 billion acquisition, the billionaire waved his hands to tell Sacks, CEO of venture capital firm Craft Ventures, not to enter the room.
"David, this meeting is too technical for you," Musk said, according to an anonymous engineer who attended the meeting and spoke to The Verge.
The publication said Sacks was quick to obey Musk's command and left the room without a word — an interaction that shocked the engineers at the meeting.
Musk's statement could be an indicator that the billionaire does not see Sacks — who advised Musk in the acquisition process and helped with the transition to Twitter as a private company — as a technical operator, a quality Musk has prioritized in leadership roles at his companies.
The anonymous engineer told The Verge that Musk appeared to have little interest in the engineering behind Twitter and appeared "sleepy" during the meeting. (Musk has said he has worked up to 20 hours a day, and, after purchasing Twitter, he said his workload jumped from "70 to 80 hours a week to probably 120.")
Sacks, Musk, and a spokesperson for Twitter did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
Despite Musk deeming the meeting "too technical" for Sacks, the anonymous engineer appeared to doubt Musk's own technical understanding.
The engineer told The Verge that instead of focusing on the details of Twitter's tech stack — which was the purpose of the October 26 meeting — Musk was more focused on the company's expenses.
"I was writing C programs in the '90s," Musk told the engineer when she attempted to explain the company's data-center efficiency. "I understand how computers work."
Ahead of a code review with Musk, she printed out lines of Python code instead of her decades-long project because it seemed "more at Musk's level," The Verge reported.
It's not the first time that engineers at Twitter have questioned Musk's understanding of basic tech. In November, the "Chief Twit" fired at least three employees who criticized his understanding of the site's engineering.
Former Twitter engineer Amir Shevat told The Verge that Sacks also seemed uninterested in the engineering behind some of Twitter's features.
"He didn't want to understand anything," Shevat said of Sacks, who has been listed as a potential successor to Musk as CEO of the company.
All of this is despite the fact that in the past, Musk has emphasized his focus on engineering above all else.
"All managers are expected to write a meaningful amount of software themselves," Musk said in an email to Twitter staff. "Being unable to do so is like a cavalry captain who can't ride a horse."
Read the full report from The Verge on its website.