Have I been fired? the worker asks CEO Elon Musk on Twitter
- By James Clayton
- North America technology reporter
Halli Thorleifsson
A Twitter employee has appealed to Elon Musk on the platform to ask if he has been fired.
In a tweet to the company’s CEO, Thorleifsson said: “Your HR manager cannot confirm whether I am employed or not”.
Mr Musk responded by asking: “What work have you done?”
Halli Thorleifsson told the BBC that nine days after being frozen out of Twitter’s accounts, he did not know whether he had been fired or not.
After a series of follow-up questions and answers with Musk, which read like a live interview for his job, Thorleifsson said he received an email confirming he had been fired.
Twitter immediately responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
Mr Thorleifsson, 45, was senior director of product design for Twitter. He told the BBC that the ambiguity surrounding his job was “strange” and “extremely stressful”.
“I opened my computer on Sunday morning nine days ago and saw that the screen was gray and locked, indicating that I had been locked out of my Twitter accounts,” he said.
“After a few days I started contacting people, including Elon and the head of HR to ask about my situation.
“The HR manager has since emailed me twice and has not been able to answer whether I am employed by Twitter or not.”
Frustrated, he tweeted his CEO, Elon Musk.
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“Maybe if enough people retweet you will answer me here”, Mr Thorleifsson.
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After several follow-up questions, Thorleifsson gave a list of things he had done in the company. The exchange ended with Mr Musk posting two laughing emojis.
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Shortly after the exchange, Thorleifsson said Twitter’s Human Resources department contacted him and said he had been fired.
The Iceland-based entrepreneur had sold his company, Ueno, a creative design agency, to Twitter in early 2021 – after founding the firm in Reykjavik in 2014.
As part of the acquisition, he became a full-time employee of Twitter.
“I decided to sell for a few reasons, but one of them is that I have muscular dystrophy and my body is slowly but surely failing me,” he told the BBC.
“I have a few good working years left in me, so this was a way to end my company and set myself and my family up for years when I won’t be able to do much.”
Halli Thorleifsson with her family
Thorleifsson is worried that Musk will not honor the contract he signed with Twitter when he sold his company.
“This is extremely stressful. This is my retirement fund, a way to take care of myself and my family while my disease progresses. To have 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.
Last month, Elon Musk appeared to fire another 200 Twitter employees. This means that Twitter now has just over 2,000 workers – down from approximately 7,500 in October.
“Companies let people go, it’s within their rights,” Thorleifsson said. “They usually tell people about it, but apparently it’s the optional part on Twitter now”.
