A man employed by Twitter tweeted at Elon Musk to find out if he was fired or not after his accounts were locked.
Halli Thorleifsson, 45, says he worked as a senior director in product design for the social media company.
But when access to his work computer was cut, and HR was unable to confirm his employment status, Thorleifsson took matters into his own hands and tweeted at the CEO, billionaire Tesla boss Elon Musk.
Thorleifsson said: “Dear Elon Musk, nine days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees.
“However your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You’ve not answered my emails.
“Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?”
Dear @elonmusk 👋
— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 6, 2023
9 days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees.
However your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You've not answered my emails.
Maybe if enough people retweet you'll answer me here?
Musk replied and asked Thorleifsson what work he had been doing at Twitter. When asked by Thorleifsson whether he could break confidentiality to reply publicly on Twitter, Musk assured him that he could.
Thorleifsson then said that since tweeting at Musk, the head of HR confirmed that he “no longer [works] at Twitter”.
He then asked Musk: “Now the next question is if you will make sure I get paid what I’m owed per my contract?!”
The designer also told the Twitter boss: “To be clear. You have every right to lay me off. That’s totally fair and fine.
“But usually people are told when that happens. Maybe with a letter or something. Which didn’t happen for nine days despite multiple emails to you and others.”
But the original question was if I was still employed or not since you or your head of HR haven’t been able to answer that yet.
— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 7, 2023
But she did just miraculously reply so I finally have confirmation that I no longer work at Twitter!!
Thorleifsson says he was employed by Twitter since selling his creative design agency, Ueno, to the social media company in 2021. He founded the company in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 2014.
He told the BBC: “This is extremely stressful. This is my retirement fund, a way to take care of myself and my family as my disease progresses.
“Having the richest man in the world on the other end of this, potentially refusing to stand by contracts is not easy for me to accept.”
Musk later tweeted in response to another Twitter user claiming: “The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm.
“Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that.”
The tech billionaire added: “But was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place!”
But was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
In February, it was reported that Twitter had fired about 200 employees. Since taking over Twitter, Musk has reportedly fired thousands of employees.
