Nine days and a public message directly to Elon Musk. That’s what it took for Halli Thorleifsson, director of product design at Twitter, to be confirmed that he had indeed been fired by his employer. Before that, the man lived nine days in doubt, after having his access to his computer and his professional account suddenly cut off and having to face the non-response of the human resources of his company. “There was a strange and extremely stressful form of ambiguity around [my] work situation,” he told the BBC.
Halli Thorleifsson therefore took to his Twitter account to speak directly and publicly to his big boss, Elon Musk, asking him whether or not he was still employed by his company. A message seen by more than 32 million Internet users and to which the billionaire replied, asking the man what job he exercised within the company. There followed several messages in which the former director detailed his various missions within the company. Then the exchange ended with Elon Musk posting two laughing emojis.
Dear @elonmusk ?? 9 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. Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?
The man finally received a letter from human resources from Twitter, notifying him of his dismissal. But following the many comments sparked by these messages, the billionaire split a tweet in which he denigrates his former employee, accusing him of having provided “no real work” and of being “rich”.
????
An exchange that says a lot about the social climate that reigns within the platform, which has laid off more than 5,000 people since its takeover by Elon Musk last October.
