Elon Musk publicly trashes designer who asked if he still has a job at Twitter, questions his disability

On Monday, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter spent his evening antagonizing Haraldur Thorleifsson, a now-former senior director of product design at the company after Thorleifsson tweeted at Musk inquiring whether he was still employed.

During the episode, Musk publicly questioned the former Twitter worker’s disability. Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy(Opens in a new tab) and has used a wheelchair for 20 years.

According to Thorleifsson, he was locked out of his company laptop nine days ago. This is the same weekend that Twitter laid off a number of employees who were founders of businesses that Twitter had acquired before Musk’s takeover. These individuals were formerly placed on a “do not fire” list as their exit package compensation was considered too expensive to pay out. Thorleifsson was the founder of Ueno, a popular creative design agency, which Twitter acquired in 2021.

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Thorleifsson shared that although he was remotely denied access to his computer, Twitter’s human resources department could not confirm the status of his employment.

“Dear @elonmusk…9 days ago the access to my work computer was cut, along with about 200 other Twitter employees,” Thorleifsson tweeted(Opens in a new tab). “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?”

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Musk replied(Opens in a new tab), questioning Thorleifsson about the work he’s done at Twitter. It was a bizarre public request to make and incited Musk’s most hardcore fans to pile on in attacking Thorleifsson.

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Thorleifsson sought confirmation from Musk that he could answer without breaking his confidentiality agreement. On Musk’s approval(Opens in a new tab), Thorleifsson laid out what he’s done at Twitter. One of his recent accomplishments, according to Thorleifsson, was to save the company $500,000 on a contract with the online design application tool, Figma. He also says he was the lead on “all active design projects.”

Musk replied(Opens in a new tab) with laughing emojis.

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It’s unclear why Musk laughed at the answer. Some Twitter users have assumed Musk thought Figma was a joke due to the prankster who pretended to be a laid off Twitter employee named “Rahul Ligma.” However, Figma is a very real design application company that was acquired(Opens in a new tab) by Adobe for $20 billion last year.

As for Thorleifsson’s work leading projects, Twitter acquired(Opens in a new tab) his design agency in 2021 specifically with the intent to hire Thorleifsson and his team.

Musk seemingly unsatisfied with the answers, questioned Thorleifsson further and asked for proof of the designer’s work.

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” Musk replied, to which Thorleifsson reminded(Opens in a new tab) Musk that he did not have access to his work computer so he couldn’t oblige.

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Thorleifsson replied(Opens in a new tab) to further heckling from Musk by pointing out he just had wanted to know if he still worked for the company, and that he was not questioning Musk’s decision if he was indeed laid off.

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It seems like things could’ve ended there, yet Musk continued on by bringing up Thorleifsson’s disability in a reply to another user.

“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,” Musk tweeted(Opens in a new tab). “But was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place!”

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Thorleifsson won(Opens in a new tab) multiple “person of the year” awards from media organizations in Iceland where he resides. When his company was acquired by Twitter in 2021, he chose a method of payment that would maximize the amount he would pay in taxes to show his appreciation to Iceland’s social welfare system. One of his current projects, Ramp Up Iceland, is erecting wheelchair ramps throughout the country in order to make Iceland more accessible.

Regardless of all that, the designer was simply asking what his employment status with the company was.

After the initial back-and-forth, Thorleifsson decided to share(Opens in a new tab) more about his story in a Twitter thread. In it, he addresses Musk’s apparent trolling by explaining he has started to lose upper body strength as part of his condition, and that typing for long periods is increasingly getting difficult.

Thorleifsson was able to get the final blow(Opens in a new tab) in on Musk as well, referencing a new report(Opens in a new tab) that claims the Twitter owner is flanked by two bodyguards wherever he goes inside Twitter as he fears his own employees.

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“Oh! I forgot to mention that I read you can’t go to the toilet on your own either @elonmusk,” he tweeted. “I’m sorry to hear about that. I know the feeling. The only difference is I can’t do it because of a physical disability and you’re afraid someone you hurt will attack you while you poop.”

UPDATE: Mar. 8, 2023, 2:12 p.m. AEDT Musk is now backtracking just a few hours later, claiming to have now held a video call with Thorleifsson to determine “what’s real vs what I was told.”

“I would like to apologize to Halli for my misunderstanding of his situation,” Musk tweeted.(Opens in a new tab) “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.”

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This backtrack may have been influenced by the fact that Thorleifsson was reportedly on Twitter’s “do not fire” list(Opens in a new tab), as his contract entitles him to a very sizable payout. Thorleifsson has not publicly confirmed the meeting nor whether he is considering staying on at Twitter.