Since acquiring Twitter last October for $44 billion, Musk has embarked on a mission to cut the company’s costs by laying off employees around the world. The result is that Twitter now employs about 1,300 people, compared to the former 7,500.
Among those fired is Haraldur Torlejfsson, an entrepreneur from Reykjavik, who asked Musk for confirmation via Twitter, because the company’s human resources department did not respond.
Public ridicule followed, along with a funny video clip, and then confirmation from the second richest man in the world that he had indeed been fired.
Torleifsson tweeted that nine days ago he was denied access to his work computer along with 200 other employees who were laid off in the latest round of layoffs in February.
What should be noted is that Torleifson is no ordinary worker. His creative agency “Ueno” was bought by “Twitter” in 2021, and as part of the sale he asked for the money to be paid as a salary, so that he could pay 46 percent of taxes instead of the usual 22 percent because he wanted to show his gratitude to the Finnish education system .
“Your head of human resources could not confirm to me whether I was still employed or not.” You didn’t answer my emails,” the Finn wrote, to which after some time Musk replied: “What job did you do?”
After getting permission from Musk to share the details of the deal without breaching confidentiality, Torleifson outlined some of the work — improving design across the company, hiring designers as well as shifting the company’s focus and attracting younger users.
“Photos or it didn’t happen,” Musk replied, asking for more evidence, adding that Twitter hadn’t hired a single designer in the past four months.
To this, Torleifsson said that he could not provide any photos or evidence of his claims because his computer was blocked. Finally, Musk responded with a video clip from the comedy Office Space.
Later, the Finn confirmed that after the exchange of messages with Mask, the head of human resources of “Twitter” contacted him and confirmed that he was no longer employed.
Continuing in a sarcastic tone, Torleifsson said: “I’m fired and that’s okay. The next thing I’d like to know is whether Twitter will pay me what it owes me under the contract. Or Elon Musk, the second richest man in the world, will try to avoid it.”
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