Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Elon Musk has apologized to a sacked Twitter employee for an exchange he had with him on the social media platform.
It came after worker Halli Thorleifsson tweeted to Musk saying: “Your HR manager is not able to say if I am employed or not”.
Musk responded: “What work have you been doing?”
Thorleifsson said he received an email confirming his firing after a series of follow-up questions and answers. Musk responded to the Twitter conversation on Tuesday by calling Thorleifsson “the worst,” before deleting it. Musk, however, took to the platform a few hours later to offer an apology – and seemed to offer Thorleifsson his job back.
Musk stated that he would like to apologise to Thorleifsson for misinterpretation of the situation. He stated that it was based on things he was told were false or, in some cases, true but insignificant. He also stated that he is considering staying at Twitter.
Thorleifsson told the BBC exclusively on Monday that he couldn’t get a response from Twitter’s human resources department about whether or not he had been fired. He believes they made a mistake and are now looking for any way to make this a “for cause” firing in order to avoid having to fulfil their contractual obligations.
Thorleifsson had sold his creative agency to Twitter
Thorleifsson, who managed to sell his creative agency Ueno to twitter in 2021, declined to say how much he was paid. However, it is speculated that Twitter would be required to pay him a substantial sum upon his departure from the company. Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy and has advocated for improved wheelchair accessibility in Iceland.
According to local reports, when Thorleifsson sold his company to Twitter, he purposefully structured the transaction to pay a high tax rate to the Icelandic government. He was named Iceland’s Person of the Year by four media outlets last year. Some of Thorleifsson’s former colleagues were perplexed as to why he had been singled out for such public scrutiny.
As someone who has dealt closely with Thorleifsson during a turnaround, photographer Daniel Houghton expressed his disappointment on Twitter. Not only is his work ethic exceptional, but so are his talent and humility, said Houghton about Thorleifsson. Musk responded that he had just conducted a video call with Halli to determine what is true versus what he was told. He stated that talking to people is preferable over communicating via Twitter.
Musk apologised later. Thorleifsson has not been contacted by the BBC since Musk’s apology. Thorleifsson previously described the situation as “strange” and “extremely stressful” to the BBC.
The BBC requested more information from Twitter, but the company did not respond immediately.
