Elon Musk Apologizes After Insulting Disabled Ex-Twitter Employee Haraldur Thorleifsson

On March 6 ex-Twitter employee Haraldur Thorleifsson reached out to Elon Musk to clarify if he had been fired as Twitter HR didn’t know.

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?

— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 6, 2023

Instead of privately reaching out to let him know that he had indeed been fired, Musk replied, “What work have you been doing?” Thorleifsson took the time to list out what he does in his job and Musk quickly dismissed the roles in a condescending tone.

Musk then went on to speculate the reality of Thorleifsson’s disability, “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.”

After being called out by one of Thorleifsson’s previous coworkers, Musk reached out to Thorleifsson for a video call “to figure out what’s real vs what I was told.” He went on to say, “It’s a long story. Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet.”

About 40 minutes later Musk returned to Twitter to apologize to Thorleifsson, “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.”

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.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 7, 2023