Elon Musk Publicly Mocks Disabled Twitter Employee Who Was Fired, Claims Disability Was An 'Excuse'

Elon Musk has apologized for publicly mocking a former Twitter employee and accusing the man of using his disability as an "excuse" after the company fired the employee without his knowledge.

On Tuesday, a day after their exchange, Musk issued a public apology to Haraldur "Halli" Thorleifsson, whose bio said he "led an innovation team" at Twitter, and revealed that he had spoken with the ex-employee on a video call.

"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," the Twitter CEO tweeted, adding that Thorleifsson was considering staying at the company.

The issue began Monday when Thorleifsson, who had worked for Twitter in Iceland, tweeted at Musk that access to his work computer had been cut off nine days earlier, alongside around 200 other staffers, without Twitter's human resources department and management informing him about his employment status.

"However, your head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not. You've not answered my emails," Thorleifsson wrote.

Thorleifsson has muscular dystrophy, a group of diseases that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass. "Over time, muscle weakness decreases mobility, making everyday tasks difficult," the CDC said. Signs and symptoms of the disease appear at different ages.

Thorleifsson had worked for Twitter since February 2021, when he sold his digital branding company to the social media giant.

Musk responded in a tweet asking, "What work have you been doing?" When Thorleifsson provided a list of his tasks, Musk appeared to cast doubt on several points.

"Pics or it didn't happen," the Tesla CEO tweeted. He also responded to some of Thorleifsson's tweets with a pair of crying-with-laughter emojis and a link to a scene from "Office Space" in which an employee is asked, "What would you say you do here?"

In a separate tweet, the billionaire claimed that Thorleifsson "did no actual work" during his time 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," Musk wrote. "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!" Musk added in a subsequent tweet.

Replying to Musk's claims, Thorleifsson explained that he has muscular dystrophy, which put him in a wheelchair more than 20 years ago.

"I'm not able to do manual work (which in this case means typing or using a mouse) for extended periods of time without my hands starting to cramp," he said. "I can however write for an hour or two at a time. This wasn't a problem in Twitter 1.0 since I was a senior director and my job was mostly to help teams move forward, give them strategic and tactical guidance."

The ex-employee said that he sold his company, creative design agency Ueno, to Twitter back in 2021 because his body was getting weaker, even though the tech giant's offer was "lower than any smart valuation would say."

Thorleifsson later said he eventually got confirmation from HR that his employment with the company had been terminated.

"To be clear. You have every right to lay me off. That's totally fair and fine. But usually people are told when that happens," he said to Musk. "Maybe with a letter or something. Which didn't happen for 9 days despite multiple emails to you and others."

In an interview with the BBC earlier this week, Thorleifsson said that he's worried that Musk will not honor the contract he signed with Twitter and give him his severance pay.

"This is extremely stressful," Thorleifsson told the BBC. "This is my retirement fund, a way to take care of myself and my family as my disease progresses. Having the richest man in the world on the other end of this, potentially refusing to stand by contracts is not easy for me to accept."

"Companies let people go, that's within their rights," he added. "They usually tell people about it but that's seemingly the optional part at Twitter now."