George Hotz, known online as Geohot, has been talked with by Elon Musk to turn around his new acquisition Twitter.
A tough ask, undoubtedly, but who is the supposed tech genius and why him?
Hotz rose to online prominence in 2007 as the first person to successfully remove the SIM lock on an iPhone, he was only 17 at the time.
The New Jersey-based software wizard is noted for creating Jailbreak, a hack bypassing Apple’s software, and reverse engineering the PS3, sparking Sony to sue him.
Since then, Hotz has graduated to developing self-driving cars with his company Comma.ai with hopes of rivalling Tesla.
Musk even offered him a job at Tesla in 2015 which he turned down, stating the new Twitter owner repeatedly changed the terms of hire.
Now 33, Hotz is Twitter’s newest and biggest employee, tasked with fixing the social media firm's broken’ search bar, a challenge that has defeated many before.
“I’m down for a 12-week internship at Twitter for cost of living in SF (San Francisco). It’s not about accumulating capital in a dead world; it’s about making the world alive.” Hotz tweeted.
This acquisition is a clear indication of Musk’s intention to transform Twitter into a profitable business and Hotz’s reputedly genius understanding of software could propel the platform.
Plans to recruit more engineers and salespeople have been announced by the Twitter and Tesla CEO following a culling of nearly 5,000 employees.