George Hotz, who tweeted last month that he was starting a 12-week internship at Twitter to improve the platform's search quality, resigned yesterday.
The self-driving-car developer and noted hacker said he "didn't think there was any real impact I could make there," but that he appreciated the opportunity.
—George Hotz 🐀 (@realGeorgeHotz) December 20, 2022
Hotz tweeted a poll on Monday, asking if he should "step down as a Twitter intern?"
The poll referenced Elon Musk's tweet from this weekend asking if he should step down as Twitter CEO. Like Musk, Hotz added, "I will abide by the results of this poll."
—George Hotz 🐀 (@realGeorgeHotz) December 19, 2022
63% of voters voted "No" to Hotz's poll, but he tweeted about his resignation the next day.
In a Twitter Space with Musk held after he announcing his resignation, Hotz still seemed invested in the platform, saying "we're going to build something way better" than social media platform Mastodon.
Hotz did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment ahead of publication. But two people familiar with Hotz's departure from Twitter confirmed to Insider that he resigned and has been removed from internal company systems, like Slack.
In a Twitter response to a user who asked if Hotz had regrets, Hotz said, "Nah, it is what it is. Still rooting for the success of Twitter 2.0!"
In another response, Hotz said he "did that with the appropriate people, not the public" when asked if he'd do an exit interview.
After Musk's November email asking Twitter employees to commit to an "extremely hardcore" work culture, Hotz tweeted that "is the attitude that builds incredible things. Let all the people who don't desire greatness leave."
He was hired soon after, tweeting that Musk told him his job at Twitter would be fixing the platform's search function and that he would also try get rid of the pop up that appears for users who go to the website but are not logged in.
In the Twitter Space with Musk, Hotz said he removed the login popup "entirely," but that it was added back by other engineers who "messed up."
While at Twitter, Hotz was critical of Twitter's brief policy of banning links to accounts on other social media platforms.
In 2007, Hotz gained recognition when he became the first person to carrier-unlock the iPhone to let people use their iPhone on networks other than AT&T's. He was also sued by Sony for hacking the PlayStation 3.
