Twitter boss Elon Musk has backed down after publicly mocking an employee on the social media platform.
Twitter Worker Haraldur Thorleifsson wasn’t sure if he had been fired from the company after finding himself and 200 others without access to his work computer.
Unable to get a definitive answer on whether he was still working, he flagged musk in his tweet.
“Your HR executive couldn’t confirm that I’m an employee. You haven’t responded to my email. Maybe if enough people retweet it, you’ll reply to me here?” he wrote.
A surreal Twitter exchange with Musk followed, as the Twitter boss asked him about his job and questioned his disability and accommodation needs (Mr. Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy and needs a wheelchair).
Mr. Solefson “claimed that he was disabled and couldn’t type, but at the same time started a Twitter storm,” Musk said.
Mr Thorleifsson clarified that he can type with one finger and therefore write and tweet for an hour or two on his phone.
He also said that, as senior director, his role was strategy and management, and before “Twitter 1.0” (before Twitter 1.0) Musk’s takeover).
Musk also stated on Twitter that Mr. Solefson has a “well-known, active Twitter account and is very rich” and that “the reason he confronted me in public is to get a huge payment.”
During the exchange, Mr Thorleifsson, nicknamed Halli, said he received an email saying he was no longer employed.
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However, Musk changed his mind on Tuesday.
“I want to apologize to Harry for my misunderstanding of his situation,” he tweeted.
“It’s based on things I’ve been told aren’t true, or in some cases true, but don’t make sense.”
Musk suggested that Thorleifsson may not end up leaving the company, and said he was “considering staying at Twitter.”
Mr. Thorleifsson, who lives in Iceland, has around 151,000 followers on Twitter.
He joined Twitter in 2021 when the company acquired his startup Ueno.