If they don’t tell you that you’re fired, are you really fired? Since Elon Musk owns Twitter, the innards of the company are no longer a mystery. More when he himself decides to expose them on his social network. This time, the billionaire sparked debates and earned a barrage of criticism for publicly insulting a former worker with a disability, who only asked him if he had been fired.
Elon Musk insults disabled employee, fires him, apologizes and tries to rehire him, what’s going on here?
Musk is the first or second richest person in the world (this can change at any time, no matter when you read this). That means that he has the eyes of half the planet on his every move. However, the brash 51-year-old tycoon cares little about opinions about him, even if they come from specialists, authorities, Internet users or former employees.
This week, Elon Musk earned massive criticism from Twitter users (and the Internet, in general) for arguing with a former collaborator. The problem? The person in question is Haraldur Thorleifssona designer originally from Iceland who He has muscular dystrophy and lives in a wheelchair.. His condition only allows him to type slowly to type on the computer and be able to work.
As if that were not enough, the Icelander was not just any worker. better known as ‘Halli’is famous for being the founder of the company uenoan international digital creativity agency that Twitter bought in 2021. Just last December, Thorleifsson was declared Person of the Year 2022 in Icelandfor her work as a wheelchair mobility activist.
You can imagine why social networks were turned on.
The argument between Elon Musk and his former worker caused outrage
The controversy erupted on March 7, when Halli asked Musk directly, from his Twitter account, if he was still working at the company.
9 days ago my access was cut off, along with 200 other Twitter employees. Anyway, your HR boss can’t confirm if I’m an employee. You have not responded to my emails. Maybe if enough people retweet me you could reply to me?” Thorleifsson wrote.
And apparently it worked.
What work have you been doing?”Elon Musk replied a few hours later.
The designer proceeded to list his multiple functions in the company, but the owner of Twitter replied that “if there are no photos, it didn’t happen”. That is to say, if she could not demonstrate her work with images then perhaps it was not true, and to top it all off she shared a meme.
Later, in a Twitter threadthe man talked about his muscular dystrophy and how it did not affect his work on Twitter.
Let’s talk about my fingers, I know you’re very worried. I can’t do manual labor for a long time because my hands cramp (…) I’m writing this from my phone. It’s easier because I only need one finger,” he explained.
All the talk was picked up by a Twitter user named Alex Cohen, who Elon Musk also responded to. But his words, more than helping him, sank him more:
“The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did not do any real work. He claimed as an excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, but at the same time he was tweeting up a storm. I can’t say that he has much respect for that, ”argued the businessman.
Of course, the Twitter community went for the ‘boss’ jugular, for questioning and making fun of the situation. As the exchange of messages became a viral scandal, Thorleifsson said that he received an email informing him that he was no longer employed by the company, just until then!
“Tell me if you are going to be able to pay me what you owe. I think you can afford it,” the Icelander questioned Musk.
Elon Musk reconsidered… after making the problem bigger
Despite the criticism, the father of nine was insistent on proving his point.
“He has an active Twitter account and is a millionaire. The reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payoff. From what I’ve been told, he hasn’t worked in the last four months. There are many people on Twitter defending him. That hurts my faith in humanity,” he wrote in Tesla CEO.
On the same Tuesday afternoon, the South African businessman offered an apology for the first time to a former collaborator for having fired him (and for everything else).
I would like to apologize to Halli for misunderstanding her situation. It was based on things that were reported to me that were not true or, in some cases, were true but not significant. He is considering staying on Twitter,” Elon said in a tweet.
The owner of Twitter apologized for the first time to save a fortune?
According to his account, Haraldur Thorleifsson was one of 200 Twitter employees fired at the end of February. In the same group was Esther Crawford, the executive who went viral for sleeping in the Twitter offices due to overwork.
Most likely, your lawyers have recommended (or forced) you to do so for legal and financial reasons.
Since he sold his startup to Twitter, Haraldur Thorleifsson’s contract had a clause specifying that if they fired him they had to pay him 100 million dollars. The millionaire amount would be added to the respective settlement (which should not be little), as well as a possible fine for violate the HIPAA privacy law.
The HIPAA law, in force in the United States, prohibits employers from speaking openly about the health problems of their workers without the authorization of the employee, unless the person himself has previously disclosed it.
That is to say, firing Halli would imply paying him a fortune, something that not even the richest man in the world can afford at the moment. Except when Tesla is about to invest billions of dollars in the new Gigafactory in Nuevo León, Mexico.
“You had every right to fire me. But it would have been nice if you had informed me!” the designer replied to Musk.
Later, Thorleifsson confirmed that he will not continue on Twitter and will instead undertake in his native country.
I am going to open a restaurant in the center of Reykjavik very soon. It is named after my mom,” Halli concluded.
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