Elon Musk Apologizes After Online Row With Disabled Twitter Worker

Elon Musk had an online row with a disabled Twitter worker after the employee was unsure whether or not he was still employed.

Haraldur Thorleifsson decided to tweet at Musk to see if he could catch the Twitter CEO's attention and get an answer to his job situation after nine days of waiting for a response from Twitter about whether he was still employed or not, according to The Guardian.

Thorleifsson wrote on Monday that "maybe if enough people retweet," Musk will respond to his concerns. The Twitter worker received an answer from Musk, who started to ask him about his work, his disability, and his need for accommodations.

Musk went on to tweet that Thorleifsson has a "prominent, active Twitter account," and that the Twitter employee "is wealthy."

The Twitter CEO also claimed that Thorleifsson tweeted at him publicly to "get a big payout." Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair.

He explained to Musk that access to his computer was cut off nine days earlier when Twitter reportedly dismissed around 200 employees and received an email that he was no longer employed at Twitter.

He added that no one from the company replied to his "private messages." Musk then tweeted an apology to the Twitter worker, saying that his misunderstanding on the matter was "based on things I was told that were untrue."

Elon Musk and Disabled Twitter Worker

Elon Musk asked Haraldur Thorleifsson about the work he has been doing, which prompted the Twitter employee to provide a list of his task.

Musk then responded with "pics or it didn't happen." He also said in a separate tweet that Thorleifsson "did no actual work" and claimed that he had a disability as an excuse that prevented him from typing, CNN reported.

Thorleifsson clarified in a tweet that he has muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that placed him in a wheelchair more than 20 years ago. He noted that he has been unable to do manual work for extended periods of time without his hands cramping.

Thorleifsson said it was not a problem since he was a senior director and his job was to mostly help teams move forward, "give them strategic and tactical advice."

Thorleifsson founded a digital branding company acquired by Twitter in 2021. He has been recognized by the United Nations and the president of Iceland for pioneering a charitable initiative to create 1,000 wheelchair ramps around Reykjavik to up the city's accessibility. Musk tweeted that Thorleifsson is considering remaining at Twitter.

Elon Musk as Twitter CEO

Twitter had another outage, with thousands of users finding they could not access the site's links, photos, or other key features.

Elon Musk tweeted on Monday that there was a "small API change" that had huge "ramifications." He was referring to the tool used by third-party developers to run programs that draw on Twitter data.

Since becoming the Twitter CEO, Musk has laid off more than two-thirds of the company's staff and has engaged in cost-cutting initiatives.

Critical engineering teams also ended up with one or zero staff members. A former engineer at Twitter told The Washington Post in November that every mistake in "code and operations is now deadly."

The former engineer went on to say that those who were left would be "overwhelmed" and "overworked."

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

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