We came across the following video being widely shared on Facebook:
The 19 second long clip claims to show Elon Musk, the new CEO and owner of Twitter firing Vijaya Gadde, the former head of legal policy, trust, and safety on a live radio show. The video shows Gadde admitting that she has failed in a couple of ways before Musk chimes in by stating that failure comes with a big penalty and that she was fired, culminating in Gadde leaving the set.
When we looked into it, it was clear that the video was created by splicing snippets from various interviews due to the abrupt and disjointed jumps between frames. Upon further research, we found that the video was constructed from clips of two different interviews each with presenter Joe Rogan on a podcast.
The clip where Gadde says “I do think we have failed in a couple of ways and I want to admit that” was cut from her interview in 2019 where Musk was not present. Musk’s clothes on the other hand mirror those he wore during an interview with Rogan from 2018, in which Gadde was not present.
The claim that Elon Musk had fired Vijaya Gadde on air is therefore false. The clip that claims to show the firing taking place was created by using fragments from two different interviews.