X’s director of engineering, Haofei Wang, has left the company

Web Experience and Error Messages

• Multiple commenters describe X’s web experience as brittle and user-hostile: frequent generic errors (“Something went wrong”), actions blocked as “automated,” rate-limit style messages, and being pushed toward the mobile app.
• Generic, non-actionable error messages are criticized as signs of poor engineering, poor logging, or deliberate opacity; some note this is common in fraud/security flows but still bad UX when no resolution path is given.
• Web friction is also linked to aggressive bot and anti-scraping controls, which some say have worsened as AI-driven scraping has increased.

API, Developers, and Support

• A developer building on X reports key API endpoints don’t fully support long-form posts, leading to silent failures; other features (articles, ordered media) are assumed to have no proper API.
• Paid API and “Verified Org” users describe slow, ineffective support and unexplained labeling/suspensions, even when paying significant monthly fees.
• Several people argue the API has been intentionally crippled (even pre‑acquisition) to keep users in official clients and that the current team doesn’t prioritize third‑party use.

Tenure and Newsworthiness of the Departure

• Some see ~3 years at the company and <2 years in a top engineering role as relatively short for such a senior position; others argue this is fairly normal in tech.
• There is debate over whether this kind of personnel change merits coverage; some say outlets routinely report similar moves at Meta, Apple, etc., others call the specific article a “nothing burger.”

Valuation, Overpayment, and Politics

• Several comments argue the original $44B purchase price was inflated in a “frothy” market and that recent valuations at or below that level don’t imply real growth.
• Some emphasize that reported valuations are largely internal or investor-friendly marks and can be “fantasy numbers.”
• A long subthread debates Musk’s motives: business vs. political.
  • One side claims he mainly gained political influence and a platform for culture-war messaging, including around trans issues and support for specific candidates.
  • Others dispute X’s actual impact on elections and question whether social media meaningfully changes political outcomes.

Work Culture and “Hardcore” Expectations

• Many assume senior roles at X involve very long hours under “extremely hardcore” expectations, and suggest this is unsustainable for health and retention.
• Some defend explicit pro‑grind messaging as more honest than other big-tech cultures that quietly want the same, but critics say Musk frequently overpromises, misleads, and treats extreme hours as a virtue rather than a tradeoff.
• A substantial tangent contrasts US “grind” culture with European labor protections and shorter average hours, arguing that healthier, rested workers can be more productive long term.

Value of X vs. Toxicity

• Some have quit X due to toxicity and poor UX; others still find real value: dense ML/AI communities, war reporting, niche professional or learning groups.
• Several note that staying requires heavy feed curation or using third‑party viewers (e.g., Nitter) for occasional read-only access.

Platform Risk and Alignment

• One thread questions why anyone would build a product tightly coupled to X, given the platform’s instability, political direction, and apparent disinterest in use cases outside its owner’s agenda.
• The app developer responds that their niche community (e.g., math learners) is currently concentrated there, but others treat this as a warning sign about long‑term dependence on X.

Branding and Naming

• A few commenters mock the “X” rebrand as confusing and aesthetically unappealing, with jokes about mistaking the headline for a generic “company X” rather than the social network.