Elon Musk belittles disabled employees – and gets the ticket

Halli Thorleifsson wanted to log into his PC on Sunday to do some work – and was locked out. He couldn’t get into the corporate network anymore.

What happened next, however, is much crazier, shaking heads far beyond the United States and perfectly illustrating the situation on Twitter since the world’s richest person came to power.

The Twitter request

Thorleifsson reached out to Twitter boss Elon Musk via Twitter and said he lost access to his work PC nine days ago. The head of the human resources (HR) department could not tell him whether he was still employed by the company or not. And he didn’t get any replies to his emails either.

A bizarre Twitter dialogue ensued, in which the multi-billionaire discredited the Icelandic man to his more than 130 million followers.

Important to know: The Icelander has been suffering for years from a serious muscle disease called muscular dystrophy. That is why he is dependent on a wheelchair.

That didn’t stop Musk from attacking him personally and accusing him of poor work ethic.

First, Musk asked, “What kind of work have you done?” Thorleifsson’s list was clearly not enough for him, because after a critical question, the Twitter boss followed suit, claiming that the ex-employee had not done the “good job” and was also rich.

Thorleifsson then tweeted how affected he really is by his hereditary condition, that he can’t use a keyboard for more than an hour at a time – and owes his wealth to the fact that he sold his successful start-up to Twitter and “didn’t” t inherit an emerald mine”.

This hit.

Musk’s understanding followed, albeit belatedly. After making a video call with the employee.

Musk tweeted an apology Tuesday night, claiming the misunderstanding was “based on things I’ve been told that aren’t true.”

In another tweet, he wrote, “It’s better to talk to people than to communicate through tweet.”

Thorleifsson is considering staying on Twitter, Musk added.

Talk instead of tweet

Thorleifsson, who lives in Iceland, has nearly 160,000 followers. He joined Twitter in 2021 when the company, under his previous leadership, acquired his start-up Ueno, a creative agency with offices in Reykjavik and the US.

As the Guardian reports, the Icelander was praised in the local media because his share of the company’s sale was paid in wages rather than a lump sum. For example, he managed to (voluntarily) pay higher taxes in his home country.

So back to the current “beef” with the CEO and owner of the social media platform: Thorleifsson responded to Musk’s apology by saying, “The reason I asked you publicly is that you (or anyone else on Twitter) don’t replied to my Private Messages. You had every right to fire me. But it would have been nice to let me know!”

He will then open a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik “very soon,” the Icelander revealed.

In another tweet, however, Thorleifsson couldn’t help but poke fun at Musk’s widespread paranoia. Than according to another BBC report, he even allows his bodyguards to accompany him to the toilet at Twitter’s headquarters.

The Icelander, who has been in a wheelchair since he was 25 and campaigns for barrier-free access in his home country, wrote:

The question is whether Thorleifsson Twitter will survive. He told the BBC on Monday that he had still not received a reply from Twitter’s human resources department as to whether or not he had been fired.

His theory is that those responsible sought something from the American company to avoid having to fulfill their contractual obligations.

There is even public speculation that Twitter would have to pay him a significant sum if he left the company.

desperate attempt

Since Musk took control of Twitter, nothing has been the same in the company, T-Online aptly summarizes.

In a desperate attempt to make the company more profitable, the billionaire resorted to bizarre means. “A number of bills and the rent of office space were said to have gone unpaid, and contracts with cleaning staff not renewed. Office supplies were auctioned – an anonymous employee even told the BBC that Twitter was trying to sell office plants to employees.”

The billionaire’s most popular savings measure is still laying off employees. Immediately after his takeover, he said goodbye to almost half of the staff and since then there have been a number of redundancies.

A typical pattern seems to be continuing here: instead of notifying affected employees of their termination, their accounts are simply deactivated. They then find out that they can no longer log in to the company’s intranet.

Sources

(dsc)