- By James Clayton
- Technology reporter North America
Halli Thorleifsson
A Twitter employee has reached out to Elon Musk on the platform to ask if he has been fired.
In a tweet to the company’s CEO, Mr Thorleifsson said: “Your head of HR cannot confirm whether I am employed or not”.
Mr Musk responded by asking, “What kind of work have you done?”
Halli Thorleifsson told the BBC that nine days after he was banned from Twitter accounts, he was unsure whether he had been fired or not.
After a series of follow-up questions and answers with Mr Musk, which read like a live interview for his job, Mr Thorleifsson said he received an email confirming he had been fired.
Twitter immediately responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
Mr Thorleifsson, 45, was a senior director of product design for Twitter. He told the BBC that the uncertainty surrounding his job was “strange” and “extremely stressful”.
“I opened my computer nine days ago on a Sunday morning and saw the screen was gray and locked, indicating that I could no longer access my Twitter accounts,” he said.
“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 emailed me twice and hasn’t been able to answer whether or not I’m a Twitter employee.”
Frustrated, he tweeted his top boss, Elon Musk.
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“Maybe if enough people retweet, you’ll answer me here,” Mr. Thorleifsson.
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After several follow-up questions, Mr. Thorleifsson gave a list of things he had done at the company. The exchange ended with Mr. Musk posting two smiling emojis.
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Shortly after that conversation, Mr. Thorleifsson said Twitter’s Human Resources department contacted him and said he had been fired.
The Iceland-based entrepreneur had sold his company, Ueno, a creative design firm, to Twitter in early 2021 – after establishing the company in Reykjavik in 2014.
As part of the acquisition, he became a full-time employee at Twitter.
“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,” he told the BBC.
“I still have a few good years left in me, so this was a way to wrap up my business and set myself up and my family for years when I won’t be able to do as much.”
Halli Thorleifsson with his family
Mr Thorleifsson is concerned that Mr Musk will not honor the contract he signed with Twitter when he sold his company to them.
“This is extremely stressful. This is my retirement fund, a way to provide for myself and my family as my illness progresses. Having the richest man in the world on the other side, possibly refusing to keep contracts, is not easy for me to accept,” he said.
Last month, Elon Musk appeared to lay off another 200 Twitter employees. It means Twitter now has just over 2,000 employees — up from about 7,500 in October.
“Companies let people go, that’s their right,” said Thorleifsson. “They usually tell people about it, but apparently that’s the optional part with Twitter now.”
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