Elon Musk speaking at Tesla Investor Day.
Courtesy: Tesla
Elon Musk on Tuesday backed down from his attacks on a disabled Twitter worker who was laid off by the corporate and apologized for what he called a “misunderstanding.”
On Tuesday, Musk questioned the work performance of Haraldur Thorleifsson — who goes by “Halli” — who he said has “done almost no work for the past 4 months.”
“I would really like to apologize to Halli for my misunderstanding of his situation,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday. “It was based on things I used to be told that were unfaithful or, in some cases, true, but not meaningful.”
“He’s considering remaining at Twitter,” Musk added.
Thorleifsson, a disabled Icelandic entrepreneur, found himself drawn right into a confrontation with Musk after asking in regards to the status of his employment. Thorleifsson and Twitter, which not has a communications department, didn’t reply to questions from CNBC on the spat by the point of publication.
On Monday, Thorleifsson, 45, tweeted Musk, saying that he had been locked out of his work computer for several days and didn’t get a response from Twitter’s human resources department on whether he had been fired.
He suggested he could have been considered one of 200 employees reportedly let go by the corporate in February. Thorleifsson lives and works within the Icelandic capital Reykjavik together with his wife and two children.
Musk, an avid user of Twitter, replied by asking Thorleifsson, “What work have you ever been doing?” to which Thorleifsson responded saying he saved the corporate $500,000 on a software-as-a-service contract and led prioritization of design projects.
When Musk probed for more details, Thorleifsson identified the SaaS contract he saved the corporate money on because the design platform Figma and said his prioritization work related to “all lively design projects.”
Musk proceeded to reply with two laughing face emojis and later tweeted a link to a clip from “Office Space,” a comedy movie that parodies office working culture, where an worker is asked, “What would you say you do here?”
Following the back-and-forth with Musk, Thorleifsson said he was informed by Twitter’s head of human resources that he had been sacked.
Musk proceeded to criticize Thorleifsson over his work performance at the corporate, saying he “did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was concurrently tweeting up a storm.”
If an worker is having to ask their boss via Twitter in the event that they still have a job or not, something has clearly gone pretty flawed.
Matt Monette
U.K. and Ireland Country Lead, Deel
Billy Markus, co-creator of dogecoin and an ally of Musk, expressed disapproval of Musk’s tweets. In a since-deleted response to Markus, Musk said, “He’s the worst, sorry.”
After a Twitter user said he had worked with Thorleifsson directly and located his work ethic “next level,” Musk says he gave Thorleifsson a video call “to determine what’s real vs what I used to be told.” Musk then apologized and suggested Thorleifsson was considering staying at Twitter.
Matt Monette, U.K. and Ireland country lead at human resources platform Deel, said there was a “greater need for effective internal communications,” as tech layoffs increase while distant work is becoming more commonplace.
“If an worker is having to ask their boss via Twitter in the event that they still have a job or not, something has clearly gone pretty flawed,” Monette told CNBC via email. “Employers must be sure that they abide by the principles in numerous countries.”
The incident is one of the crucial bizarre developments thus far within the saga surrounding Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Musk agreed to purchase the social media site last 12 months for $44 billion. He has since sought to chop costs dramatically in a bid to make it a profitable enterprise.
As a part of that strategy, Musk laid off 1000’s of Twitter’s employees. It cut one other 200 jobs last month, in response to a report from The Recent York Times, taking its total staff count all the way down to 2,000 from roughly 7,500 in October.
Person of the 12 months
Thorleifsson was brought into Twitter as a senior director of product design after the sale of his company Ueno, a digital brand design agency, to Twitter in 2021. He suffers from muscular dystrophy, a disease that weakens muscles over time. Thorleifsson explained his disability has made it harder for him to do manual work for prolonged periods of time without his hands beginning to cramp.
In response to Icelandic Review, Thorleifsson was crowned Iceland’s “person of the 12 months” in 2022 by several Icelandic media outlets, partly as a result of the sale of Ueno and his efforts to put in wheelchair ramps across the country.
Thorleifsson says a part of the explanation why he sold the corporate — which he described as being on unfavorable financial terms — was that his disability made it harder for him to do manual work.
Thorleifsson reportedly selected to be paid the sale price as a salary, in order that he could pay 46% in income tax somewhat than the usual 22% tax rate on investment gains.
Thorleifsson said he was in the dead of night about whether he’ll receive severance pay. “Corporations let people go, that is inside their rights,” Thorleifsson said on Twitter. “They typically tell people about it but that is seemingly the optional part at Twitter now.”
It isn’t yet clear what he’ll determine to do next — although he said earlier Tuesday that he was planning to open a restaurant named after his mother in downtown Reykjavik “very soon.”