If you’re not told you’re fired, are you really fired? AT Twitterprobably.
Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently worked at Twitter, logged into his computer last Sunday to do some work – only to find himself locked out, along with 200 other people.
He might have thought, as others before him have done during the chaotic months of layoffs and dismissals since Elon Musk took over the business, that he was unemployed.
Instead, after nine days of no response from Twitter as to whether or not he was still employed, Thorleifsson decided to tweet Musk to see if he could get the billionaire’s attention and get a response to the situation. sound professional Schrödinger.
“Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll reply to me here?” he wrote on Monday.
Dear @Elon Musk 👋
9 days ago, access to my work computer was cut off, along with about 200 other Twitter employees.
However, your HR manager is unable to confirm whether I am an employee or not. You haven’t answered my emails.
Maybe if enough people retweet, you’ll reply to me here?
— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 6, 2023
Finally, he got his answer after a surreal Twitter exchange with Musk, who asked him about his job, questioned his disability and his need to adapt (Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair) and tweeted that Thorleifsson has a “prominent, active Twitter account and is wealthy” and the “reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout”.
The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did no real work, pretended as an excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, but was simultaneously tweeting a storm.
I can’t say I have much respect for that.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
During the exchange, Thorleifsson said he received an email notifying him that he was no longer employed.
On Tuesday night, Musk tweeted an apology to Thorleifsson, saying his misunderstanding was “based on things I’ve been told that were untrue.”
I would like to apologize to Halli for my misunderstanding of her situation. It was based on things I had been told that were untrue or in some cases true, but not significant.
He plans to stay on Twitter.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
Thorleifsson, who lives in Iceland, has nearly 160,000 Twitter followers (Musk has more than 130 million). He joined Twitter in 2021, when the company, under previous leadership, acquired its startup Ueno.
He was praised in the Icelandic media for choosing to receive the purchase price as a salary rather than a lump sum payment. This is because that way he would pay higher taxes to Iceland to support its social services and safety net.
Thorleifsson tweeted at Musk that “The reason I asked you in public is because you (or someone else on Twitter) didn’t reply to my private messages.”
“You had every right to fire me. But it would have been nice to let me know! he added.
Next for Thorleifsson: “I’m opening a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik very soon,” he tweeted. “He’s named after my mother.”