Topline
The world’s second-richest man and Twitter CEO Elon Musk went on another trolling escapade this week, this time targeting the founder of a business acquired by his new company who asked if he was still employed at Twitter, with the two men engaging in a messy dispute over the since-fired employee’s disability.
Elon Musk, left, and his mother Maye Musk at the 2022 Met Gala.
Key Facts
In a viral thread tagging Musk, former Twitter designer Halli Thorleifsson, who founded Ueno, the design agency that Twitter acquired in 2021, tweeted Monday afternoon asking if he was in fact a casualty of Twitter’s latest round of layoffs, saying he hadn’t heard from the company’s human resources department nine days after being locked out of his company-issued laptop.
Musk replied four hours later: “What work have you been doing?”
That set forth a bitter disagreement between the billionaire boss and Thorleifsson, the latter of whom said his muscular dystrophy affects his ability to complete tasks such as typing on a keyboard or using a mouse.
Musk did not buy Thorleifsson’s explanation, saying he didn’t “have a lot of respect” for Thorleiffson’s “excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing…while simultaneously tweeting up a storm.”
Thorleiffson did get some sort of closure, as Musk publicly addressed his employment status: “Was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place!”
Crucial Quote
“I forgot to mention that I read you can’t go to the toilet on your own either,” Thorleiffson tweeted at Musk, referring to a recent BBC report suggesting two bodyguards accompany Musk to the bathroom at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters. “I’m sorry to hear about that. I know the feeling. The only difference is I can’t do it because of a physical disability and you’re afraid someone you hurt will attack you while you poop.”
Key Background
Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter closed last October after six months of back-and-forth between Musk and Twitter brass as the billionaire sought to back out of the deal. Musk, worth $189 billion according to our latest estimates, fired nearly every top-ranking executive at Twitter following his takeover. Twitter’s total headcount is down to less than 2,000 since Musk took power, a drastic decrease from its roughly 7,500 employees before the acquisition. Amid the turmoil, Twitter has been plagued by outages and major glitches, with users unable to post images for a period Monday afternoon. “This platform is so brittle (sigh). Will be fixed shortly,” Musk tweeted Monday afternoon in response to a message criticizing users complaining about glitches.
Further Reading
EU Privacy Regulator Flags Concern About ‘Breakdown Of Communication’ With Twitter (Forbes)
Twitter insiders: We can’t protect users from trolling under Musk (BBC)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/03/07/musk-trolls-twitter-employee-asking-if-he-was-fired-and-questions-workers-disability/