If you’re not told you are fired, are you really fired? At Twitter, probably.
Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently was employed at Twitter, logged in to his computer last Sunday to do some work – only to find himself locked out, along with 200 others.
He might have figured, as others before him have in the chaotic months of layoffs and firings since Elon Musk took over the company, that he was out of a job.
Instead, after nine days of no answer from Twitter as to whether or not he was still employed, Thorleifsson decided to tweet at Musk to see if he could catch the billionaire’s attention and get an answer to his Schrödinger’s job situation.
“Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?” he wrote on Monday.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633011448459964417″,”id”:”1633011448459964417″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”a95727cc-5c32-40f3-aca5-35a0a37f3b26″}}’>
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
While the exchange was going on, Thorleifsson said he received an email that he was no longer employed.
On Tuesday evening, Musk tweeted an apology to Thorleifsson, saying his misunderstanding was “based on things I was told that were untrue”.