Elon Musk Apologizes to Laid Off Twitter Employee After Accusing Him of Faking a Disability for Money

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Elon Musk said he’s sorry after publicly mocking a disabled Twitter employee by casting doubt on the idea that the man was, in fact, disabled.

The Twitter CEO got in a public dispute with Haraldur Thorleifsson on Tuesday when the Iceland-based Twitter designer took to the social media platform to ask Musk if he still had a job after getting locked out of his work account. Musk responded by quizzing him on the nature of his work for Twitter, and as Thorleifsson explained himself, the Twitter CEO responded with derision, impugned Thorleifsson’s work ethic, and questioned whether he had a physical disability.

Musk also scoffed at Thorleifsson by claiming “The reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout.” This was accompanied by Musk’s dismay over the outrage he caused by sneering at Thorleifsson’s situation.

“From what I’ve been told, he’s done almost no work for the past four months, middle-management or otherwise,” Musk tweeted. “Despite his claims on Twitter that he did work, it turns out he told HR that he couldn’t work because he couldn’t type, but was, over the same period, typing up a storm on Twitter. Yet there are many people on Twitter defending him. This hurts my faith in humanity.”

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1633159188787658757

As it were, Thorleifsson has stated on his personal website that he suffers from muscular dystrophy, and he joined Twitter in 2021 when it bought out his start-up company. After a lengthy thread where Thorleifsson explained his condition and his work with Twitter, Musk sang a different tune by apologizing and saying he was basing his previous comments on incomplete information.

“Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet,” said Musk. “I would like to apologize 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.”

Musk’s previous tweet was also given an attachment to notify readers of his walk-back.

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