Who Is Foad Dabiri? Twitter's Engineering Chief Resigns After DeSantis Launch Glitches

Twitter's engineering chief Foad Dabiri resigned Thursday, a day after the launch of Ron DeSantis' U.S. presidential campaign on the platform faced technical glitches.

"After almost four incredible years at Twitter, I decided to leave the nest yesterday. The combination of the fantastic community, the impact it has, and its limitless potential sets Twitter apart. So, here is my pseudo-obligatory gratitude thread: #LoveWhereYouWorked," Dabiri tweeted.

A Twitter live stream showing DeSantis' entry into the 2024 White House race malfunctioned Wednesday. It remains unclear if Dabiri was asked to resign by Elon Musk.

In another post, Dabiri said the transition into Twitter's "2.0" was "massive and rapid... To say it was challenging at the outset would be an understatement."

"Working with @elonmusk has been highly educational, and it was enlightening to see how his principles and vision are shaping the future of this company," he added.

Since Musk took over Twitter, more than 80% of the workforce has been cut.

Talking about the glitch, Musk – who is also the CEO of car maker Tesla and rocket firm SpaceX, said the problems occurred due to "server strain" and "melting the servers," Bloomberg reported.

DeSantis' campaign launch, organized by the Twitter Spaces event, faced several glitches as over 500,000 people waited for more than 20 minutes for the event to start. Others were unable to join the event. After the original one failed, Musk and investor David Sacks started a new Twitter Spaces webcast. However, the new stream also faced technical issues.

A DeSantis campaign official told NBC News, "Governor DeSantis broke the internet — that should tell you everything you need to know about the strength of his candidacy....!"

Who is Foad Dabiri?

Foad Dabiri, who was the director of engineering at Twitter, earned a BS in electrical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. He also has an M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He received the degrees in 2005 and 2008. He also did postdoctoral research at the Embedded and Reconfigurable Systems Lab while collaborating with UCLA Wireless Health Institute.

Before working for Twitter, Dabiri was the CEO of Wanda, an AI-based company for patient health management. He had originally started in the company as a CTO. He also worked as senior software engineer at Google before joining Wanda.