Elon Musk loses his cool with ‘jacka**’ Netflix engineer during Twitter space

Elon Musk appeared to lose his temper when asked to explain basic elements of his plan to "totally rewrite" Twitter's code on Tuesday night.

In a live panel discussion on Twitter Spaces, the 51-year-old tycoon claimed that the social network suffered from "crazy" software design and would need a top-to-bottom renovation in order to launch new features quickly.

But when Ian Brown, a software performance engineer at Netflix who previously worked at Twitter for eight years, asked for more details, Mr Musk refused to answer, eventually resorting to calling Mr Brown "a jacka***".

Discussion swiftly broke down, and Mr Brown's microphone was cut off by the moderator.

"I think, frankly, if you want to have a really high velocity of features, we'll just need to do a total rewrite of the whole thing," Mr Musk has said.

Mr Brown interjected: "Wait, seriously? A total rewrite? That's your prediction for velocity?" He then requested more details, asking: "Revolution or reform?"

Mr Musk responded that Twitter's "stack" – a tech industry term for the multiple layers of specialised software that make up a complex online service such as Twitter – was "crazy" and needed radical changes.

Mr Brown pressed: "When you say crazy stack, what do you mean? Like, break it down?" There was a long pause, during which someone else in the discussion began laughing.

Despite repeated questions, Mr Musk refused to elaborate, ultimately declaring: "Amazing. You're a jacka**."