Billionaire Elon Musk has been forced to backtrack after he claimed that an employee did no work and was the ‘worst’ in several tweets.
The social media spat went on for several hours and caught the public’s attention, as the Space X owner seemingly mocked the disabled entrepreneur on Twitter.
It began with Thorleifsson asking whether or not he was still employed by the social media platform, as he’d struggled to get a straight answer from HR.
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Tagging Musk in a tweet, he said: "Your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am employed or not."
To which the Twitter owner replied: "What work have you been doing?"
Though Thorleifsson explained and listed everything he’d done to improve Twitter, including cutting major costs for the company, he was almost immediately dismissed.
In one tweet, Musk appeared to mock the entrepreneur by asking if he was a ‘people person’ and shared a clip of 90’s film Office Space, which showed an employee struggling to say what they did.
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He also called Thorleifsson ‘the worst’ in a now deleted tweet.
During the heated discussion, Thorleifsson said that he received an email saying that he was no longer employed.
He then asked whether he would be reimbursed for his contribution to the company.
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He angrily tweeted at the Twitter owner, saying: “…will @elonmusk, one of the richest people in the world, try to avoid paying?”
It was then Musk who made several accusations about Thorleifsson, writing: “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.”
Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy and in response, he tweeted about the struggles that he goes through on a day-to-day basis.
Unsurprisingly, Musk was forced to backtrack and just hours later, he seemed to be offering him his job back.
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In a lengthy apology, Musk wrote: "I would like to apologise to Halli for my misunderstanding of his situation. It was based on things I was told that were untrue or, in some cases, true, but not meaningful."
"He is considering remaining at Twitter," the owner added.
Musk also said that he spoke to Thorleifsson on a video call to 'figure out what is real vs what I was told'.
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"Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet." he said.
However, it is still unclear if Thorleifsson has returned to the company.
UNILAD has reached out to Twitter for comment.
Katherine Sidnell