Elon Musk Under Fire for Attempting to Publicly Humiliate Disabled Employee Instead of Telling Him If He Still Has a Job: ‘Superlative Piece of Sh*t’
Hannibal Hanschke/Pool via AP
Elon Musk drew outrage for scoffing at a former Twitter employee’s physical disability while demeaning his work for the social media company.
The blow-up began when Twitter designer Haraldur Thorleifsson reached out to Musk to ask if he still had a job after his connection to his work account got cut. Musk responded by granting Thorleifsson permission to break his confidentiality agreement with Twitter to publicly speak about what he did for the social network.
As Thorleifsson attempted to elaborate on his work, Musk responded with skepticism before posting laughing emojis directed at Thorleifsson. Musk then claims “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.”
Musk followed with “But was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place!”
As Musk noted, Thorleifsson is open about how he suffers from muscle dystrophy, which confines him to a wheelchair and has made the use of his arms more difficult in recent years. Thorleifsson joined Twitter two years ago when the company made him an employee after buying out his agency.
Thorleifsson later confirmed his termination from Twitter, which comes after a series of employee purges the company has seen since Musk’s takeover. He reacted to the CEO’s claims by posting a 17-tweet thread about his condition, the timeline of his work with Twitter, and an explainer of how he coped with his physical limitations on the job.
He concluded by saying Musk had shared confidential health information, and he asked Musk “if you are going to pay what you owe me?”
As for the rest of the Twitterverse, Musk’s skepticism of Thorleifsson’s work ethic didn’t go over well with critics who assessed he was using that as a pretext for discriminating against the disabled. Thus came waves of outrage, plus predictions that Musk is increasing his own exposure to legal blowback.
https://twitter.com/maxberger/status/1633093243821781005
https://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/1633088135977377792
