It happens to Twitter. Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently worked at the social network, logged into his computer to do some work. Only to find himself stranded, along with 200 others. He may have thought, as others have before him in the chaotic months of layoffs since Elon Musk took over the company, that he was out of a job. Instead, after nine days with no response from Twitter, Thorleifsson decided to tweet at Musk to see if he could get the billionaire’s attention and get an answer to his work situation. “Maybe if enough people retweet you will reply to me here?” he has written. And finally, he got his answer, but only after a surreal exchange with Musk, who proceeded to question him about his work, questioning his disability (Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair). . While the swap was in progress, Thorleifsson said he received an email that he was no longer employed.
Thorleifsson, who lives in Iceland, has about 141,000 Twitter followers (Musk has over 130 million). Lui joined Twitter in 2021, when the company, under previous management, acquired his startup Ueno. He has been lauded in the Icelandic media for choosing to receive the purchase price in wages rather than a lump sum. This is because in this way he would pay higher taxes to Iceland in support of social services. Thorleifsson wrote to Musk that “The reason I asked you in public is because you (or anyone else on Twitter) haven’t responded to my private messages.” You had every right to fire me. But it would have been nice to let me know,” he added. Thorleifsson’s next move? “I’m opening a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik very soon,” he tweeted. “It’s named after my mother.”
