- By James Clayton
- Technology reporter for North America
40 minutes ago
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Hello Thorleifsson
A Twitter employee has reached out to Elon Musk on the platform to ask if he’s been fired.
In a tweet to the company’s CEO, Mr Thorleifsson said: “Your HR manager cannot confirm whether I am employed or not.”
Mr Musk responded by asking, “What work did you do?”
Halli Thorleifsson told the BBC he didn’t know if he had been fired or not nine days after he was banned from Twitter accounts.
After a series of questions and answers with Mr Musk, which read like a live interview for his job, Mr Thorleifsson said he had received an email confirming he had been fired.
Twitter immediately responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
Mr. Thorleifsson, 45, was Twitter’s senior director of product design. He told the BBC the ambiguity surrounding his job was “strange” and “extremely stressful”.
“I opened my computer Sunday morning nine days ago and saw that the screen was gray and locked, indicating I was banned from my Twitter accounts,” he said.
“After a few days had passed I started reaching out to people including Elon and the Head of Human Resources to inquire about my situation.
“The hiring manager has emailed me twice since then and couldn’t answer whether I’m a Twitter contributor or not.”
Frustrated, he tweeted his top boss Elon Musk.
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“Maybe if enough people retweet, you’ll reply to me here,” Mr Thorleifsson.
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After several inquiries, Mr Thorleifsson provided 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 that exchange, Mr Thorleifsson said Twitter’s HR department had contacted him and told him 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 company in Reykjavik in 2014.
As part of the acquisition, he became a full-time employee at Twitter.
“I made the decision to sell for a number of 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 still have a few good working years ahead of me, so this was a way to wrap up my business and set myself and my family up for years when I won’t be able to do as much.”
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Halli Thorleifsson with his family
Mr Thorleifsson is concerned Mr Musk will not honor the deal he signed with Twitter when he sold them his company.
“It’s extremely stressful. This is my retirement fund, a way to provide for me and my family as my illness progresses. Having the richest man in the world on the other end and possibly refusing to honor contracts is not easy for me to accept,” he said.
Last month, Elon Musk appeared to be firing another 200 Twitter employees. That means Twitter now has a little over 2,000 employees — down from about 7,500 in October.
“Companies let people go, it’s their right,” Mr Thorleifsson said. “They usually tell people about it, but that’s apparently the optional part on Twitter now.”