A former Twitter employee, who claimed he lost access to his work computer nine days ago, took to the platform to find out about his employment status. Addressing the tweet to CEO Elon Musk, he said that the head of HR at Twitter was unable to confirm his job status, and he hopes that Musk would respond.
Musk did respond to his query but in the most typical way which is now being criticized on the social media platform.
Dear @elonmusk 👋
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?— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 6, 2023
Icelandic entrepreneur Haraldur Thorleifsson, known as Halli, mentioned in the tweet that there were a total of 200 employees who lost access in a similar fashion.
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Musk responded to Thorleifsson’s with a query, “What work have you been doing?"
What work have you been doing?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
Given how litigious Twitter can be, Thorleifsson asked Musk for legal permission to disclose his job profile to avoid violating any confidentiality policies of the company. After this, Musk cleared him to go ahead.
It’s approved, you go ahead
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
Thorleifsson then went on to describe his job profile and Musk asked him for further clarification on his role. When he elaborated, Musk laughed at Thorleifsson with two emoticons without providing any information.
🤣🤣
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023
Musk’s response was deemed insensitive by many who called him out for mistreating his employees.
Once again, Elon treats people like they’re utterly without value. https://t.co/By8g55IHsX
— Scottacular (@Scottcrates) March 7, 2023
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Shortly after the exchange, Thorleifsson said that Twitter's Human Resources department contacted him and confirmed he had been fired.
But as I shared I finally got confirmation that I am not an employee anymore.
Again, that's totally within your rights. No complaints.But can you make sure I get paid what I'm owed?— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 7, 2023
He further asked the company to pay him the wages that they owed.
The Iceland-based entrepreneur sold his creative design agency, Ueno, which he founded in Reykjavik in 2014 to Twitter in early 2021. As part of the acquisition, he was appointed as a full-time employee at Twitter.
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However, Thorleifsson expressed that he is worried about Musk not honouring the contract he signed with Twitter when he sold them his company.
"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," he said to the BBC.
Musk, who acquired the social media platform in October 2022, has steadily cut back the workforce to reduce costs. Last month, Musk appeared to fire another 200 Twitter employees which means Twitter now has just over 2,000 workers which is down from approximately 7,500 employees in October, as per the BBC report.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
First Published: Mar 7, 2023 1:56 PM IST
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