Haraldur Thorleifsson has had a protracted week. On Monday, the Icelander tweeted at Elon Musk asking if he nonetheless had a job at Twitter, since he had been locked out of his work laptop computer and hadn’t been capable of get in contact with Twitter human assets. On Tuesday, Musk tweeted that no, Thorleifsson did not still have a job, mocked him, and publicly doubted that he really suffered from muscular dystrophy. Thorleifsson patiently defined that he did. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted with his tail between his legs, apologizing to Thorleifsson. On Friday, although, in a shiny spot of fine information, the president of Iceland provided Thorleifsson, who goes by Halli, a present: socks.
“Socks for #cancer prevention and research! Halli has earned his free socks in so many ways, but those of you who are able to please purchase a pair here,” tweeted Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson. He added an image of himself carrying the socks in query.
Lest you suppose it is a little bit of malicious dogpiling by Iceland’s chief, Thorleifsson was delighted. He retweeted Jóhannesson and tweeted himself, “In other news, @PresidentISL offered to give me some nice socks today. Which is the best thing you can give someone.”
Thorleifsson is the founding father of Ueno, a digital company acquired by Twitter in 2021, the place he labored as a senior designer till Musk laid him off, regardless of his presence on a “do not fire” record of workers with monetary contracts that may be disastrous for Twitter. He’s additionally the recipient of Iceland’s 2022 Person of the Year award. When his firm was acquired, he selected to obtain his compensation in wages in order to pay a better tax fee for the betterment of Iceland’s social security web.
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After emailing Twitter HR and Musk himself asking if he had been laid off together with 1000’s of others, Thorleifsson took to Twitter Monday evening to catch the CEO’s consideration, writing, “Dear @elonmusk 👋 9 days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees. However, your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You’ve not answered my emails. Maybe if enough people retweet you’ll answer me here?” The tweet went viral, accruing tens of 1000’s of likes and retweets.
Musk did reply, quizzing Thorleifsson on the small print of his work however ultimately dismissing any tried rationalization with a easy “🤣 🤣”. It was solely after that tweet that human assets responded to Thorleifsson, confirming he had, the truth is, misplaced his job.
Not content material to flex on one in all his workers, Musk known as Thorleifsson “the worst” and added, “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. But was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place!”
Thorleifsson responded with a heartfelt litany of his sickness: “I have muscular dystrophy. It has many effects on my body. Let me tell you what they are: My legs were the first to go. When I was 25 years old I started using a wheelchair. It’s been 20 years since that happened. In that time the rest of my body has been failing me too. I need help to get in and out of bed and use the toilet.”
Musk mentioned he ended up calling Thorleifsson to hash issues out. The subsequent day, the CEO wrote, “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,” Musk tweeted. “He is considering remaining at Twitter.”
And now Thorliefsson is getting some new socks.