A Twitter employee, Mr Thorleifsson made a post on his Twitter page to appeal to Elon Musk on knowing his employment status, whether he has been sacked or not.
In a tweet to Twitter’s chief executive, Halli Thorleifsson wrote, ” nine 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.
After about three hours, Elon Musk responded by asking, “What work have you been doing?”
After a series of back and forth communication that read like an interview with the CEO, the conversation ended with Mr Musk posting two laughing emojis.
Not long after, Mr Thorleifsson told the BBC he received an email confirming that he had been sacked.
The 45 year old Twitter staff member, Mr Thorleifsson, was a senior director in product design for Twitter.
According to the BBC, “Thorleifsson said the ambiguity around his job was strange and extremely stressful.”
In his words, “I opened my computer on Sunday morning nine days ago and saw that the screen was grey and locked, indicating that I had been locked out of my Twitter accounts.”
“After a few days had passed I started reaching out to people, including Elon and the head of HR to ask about my situation.
“The head of HR has since twice emailed me and has not been able to answer whether or not I am an employee at Twitter.”
Following this frustration and lack of clarity about his Job’s status, he took it up to social media and tweeted his boss, Elon Musk.
“Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here”, Mr Thorleifsson said.
It was reported by the BBC that Thorleifsson sold his company, Ueno, a creative design agency, founded in 2014, to Twitter in early 2021.
Following this acquisition, he became a full staff at Twitter.
In his words to BBC, “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.”
“I have a few good work years left in me so this was a way to wrap up my company, and set up myself and my family for years when I won’t be able to do as much.”
Expressing his worry about Mr Musk’s disregard for the contract he had with Twitter when he sold his company, he lamented that Musk will not honour it.
“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.
