Elon Musk trolls disabled Twitter employee in a viral tweet war
San Francisco, California - Twitter CEO Elon Musk decided to troll an employee who asked if he was fired from the company, and their tweet war has gone viral.
The back and forth began on Monday afternoon when Halli Thorleifsson (45), a former senior director based out of Iceland, tweeted Musk about the status of his employment after he was locked out of accessing his work account.
"After no straight answers on my employment status for 9 days I asked @elonmusk to tell me if I had been laid off," he explained to his followers.
After several hours, Musk responded, "What work have you been doing?"
The employee gave a list of roles he claims he did with the company, but Musk posed skepticism in his response, even trolling the worker with a clip from the movie Office Space where a manager asks his employee "What would you say... you do here?"
As Thorleifsson continued listing roles, Musk concluded the conversation by responding with two laughing emojis.
Their conversation went viral, with other users weighing in and some arguing that Musk's treatment of his workers has a history of being unfair.
Musk responded to some of the criticism, stating, "The reality is that this guy (who is independently wealthy) did no actual work, claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing, yet was simultaneously tweeting up a storm. Can't say I have a lot of respect for that."
Elon Musk was wrong about worker's disability
It turns out Musk's claims about Thorleifsson were not true, as he was in fact a disabled worker for the company.
In 2021, he sold his creative design agency to Twitter, and as a part of the deal he became a full-time Twitter employee.
"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," Thorleifsson told the BBC.
He says he is worried Musk will not uphold the contract that was made when he sold his company.
"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."
Thorleifsson attempted to explain his condition to Musk in a series of tweets. He has reportedly been recognized by the United Nations and the president of Iceland for organizing a project to build wheelchair ramps for the city of Reykjavik.
Elon Musk has yet to respond to the employee or apologize for his inaccurate assertions.
Cover photo: IMAGO / NurPhoto