By Clare Duffy | CNN
Elon Musk publicly scoffed at a Twitter worker’s uncertainty about whether or not he had been laid off in a current spherical of cuts and spoke dismissively of the worker’s incapacity in a collection of tweets Monday evening. It’s the most recent instance of the billionaire brazenly antagonizing his firm’s present and former staffers.
Haraldur Thorleifsson, an Iceland-based Twitter senior director, tweeted at Musk that entry to his laptop had been reduce off 9 days earlier, when Twitter reportedly laid off some 200 workers. However, Thorleifsson stated in his tweet, “your head of HR isn't capable of affirm if I'm an worker or not.”
Musk responded in a tweet asking, “what work have you ever been doing?” When Thorleifsson offered a listing of his duties in response, Musk appeared to solid doubt on a number of factors. “Pics or it didn’t occur,” he tweeted. In a separate tweet, the billionaire stated Thorleifsson “did no precise work, claimed as an excuse that he had a incapacity that prevented him from typing.”
Thorleifsson clarified in a tweet that he has muscular dystrophy, a degenerative illness that he says put him in a wheelchair greater than 20 years in the past. Thorleifsson, who based a digital branding firm acquired by Twitter in 2021, has been acknowledged by the United Nations and the president of Iceland for spearheading a charitable effort to construct 1,000 wheelchair ramps round Reykjavik to extend the town’s accessibility.
“I’m not capable of do handbook work (which on this case means typing or utilizing a mouse) for prolonged intervals of time with out my palms beginning to cramp,” he stated. “I can nevertheless write for an hour or two at a time. This wasn’t an issue in Twitter 1.0 since I used to be a senior director and my job was largely to assist groups transfer ahead, give them strategic and tactical recommendation.”
Thorleifsson didn't instantly reply to CNN’s request for remark. Twitter, which has reduce a lot of its public relations division, additionally didn't reply.
It’s not the primary time Musk, one of many richest males on the earth, has publicly mocked workers at Twitter, the corporate he purchased for $44 billion final 12 months. He has feuded on the platform with former Twitter executives, fired workers who criticized him and in a single case publicly known as out a former worker’s tweets about him saying that they had been the results of “a tragic case of grownup onset Tourette’s.”
The jarring spectacle of an organization’s proprietor publicly mocking an worker highlights the distinctive company circus that Twitter staff have skilled over the previous 12 months. Musk threatened to bail on the deal, then accomplished the acquisition solely to proceed with a number of rounds of layoffs. Tons of of former Twitter workers at the moment are taking authorized motion towards the corporate, alleging damaged severance guarantees and, in some instances, discrimination, together with towards disabled workers.
In the meantime, the platform seems to be struggling to remain on-line. On Monday, Twitter skilled one in all its greatest outages since Musk’s takeover, with many customers solely unable to entry the positioning, and others dealing with points clicking hyperlinks or viewing images, for about an hour. It was the third main technical glitch Twitter has confronted in lower than a month, as Musk has slashed workers from round 7,500 staff earlier than his takeover to fewer than 2,000 and engaged in a collection of different cost-cutting efforts.
Following the alternate with Musk, Thorleifsson stated in a tweet that Twitter’s HR head had confirmed he's now not employed on the firm.
“Which is completely okay and it occurs on a regular basis … They normally inform individuals about it however that’s seemingly the non-compulsory half at Twitter now,” he stated. “Subsequent up although is discovering out if Twitter can pay me what they owe me per my contract.”