• Haraldur Thorleifsson has been trying in vain to find out if he has been fired from Twitter or not.
• With desperation the employee tweeted Elon Musk only to be berated and mocked to Musk’s millions of followers.
• After putting his foot in it, Musk eventually apologised saying Thorleifsson was considering remaining at Twitter.

As a rule, one should – where possible – take the high road. That is to say, the road that doesn’t have you looking like a complete fool once the chips have fallen.

Today, Elon Musk learnt that lesson when he decided to attack Haraldur Thorleifsson who had the gall to ask whether he was still employed by Twitter.

One would think that being fired from a major firm like Twitter would include an email with that information at the very least but instead, Thorleifsson simply found himself locked out of his computer on Sunday evening.

After attempting to contact human resources and receiving no answer, Thorleifsson decided to contact Musk where he knew he’d be looking – Musk’s mentions.

Sure as night follows day, Musk responded but it wasn’t a great response. After a back and forth to determine what it was Thorleifsson was doing at Twitter, Musk sided with the trolls who often edge the Chief Twit on.

“He has a prominent, active Twitter account and is wealthy. The reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout. From what I’ve been told, he’s done almost no work for the past four months, middle-management or otherwise. 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,” the owner of Twitter said.

“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,” the billionaire continued.

And then, Musk learned why you probably shouldn’t berate employees publicly without knowing the full story.

As it turns out, Thorleifsson started a firm called ueno. which did such good work it was acquired by Twitter. It was also revealed by Thorleifsson in an exhaustive thread that he has muscular dystrophy and he has been making an effort to fit in under Musk’s “hardcore” Twitter 2.0

“During my time at the new Twitter, or 2.0 as you called it, I talked to my manager every week and asked what I should focus on. And then I proceeded to do those things. Every one of them,” wrote Thorleifsson.

“I also contacted HR regularly and asked if my job description was correct or needed updating. I wanted to make sure I was doing what I was supposed to. They always said they were looking into it but I never got a reply,” he added.

The thread ends with a rather coy note that if Thorleifsson is being let go, that he will be paid what he is owed.

That thread was finished by 14:30 on 7th March, at 01:51 this morning, Musk issued a sheepish apology in a reply to a thread.

“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 wrote.

As many have pointed out, this entire exchange is mightily concerning and seemingly only ended the way it did because Musk was worried about paying Thorleifsson what he was owed.

What exactly that means is unclear but we suspect that since ueno. was acquired by Twitter, Thorleifsson likely isn’t somebody who can simply be fired and not told about it.

This isn’t the first time Musk has berated a former employee in public and we doubt this will be the last time this happens.