Twitter's biggest troll, Elon Musk is now apologizing for
his treatment of an employee who has a disability.
He's probably apologizing because his comments could get him into a lot of
trouble legally he could get sued for a lot of money.
Now, before I get to his apology, let's backtrack and talk about what transpired,
how it transpired.
It all had to do with a now laid off employee fired employee
named Haraldur Thorleifsson.
Now he had previously sold his own company to Twitter and
then he served as a senior director at Twitter.
He happens to have a disability, he uses a wheelchair due to muscular
dystrophy that is beginning to affect his upper body and arms.
Now he suddenly lost access to his work computer or his work accounts over
a week ago and he wanted some clarity on what was going on was he fired?
No one reached out to him, no one in HR called him, so he reached out to
Twitter's Human Resources Department to find out if he still had a job.
And when that didn't work, when he received absolutely no response.
He's like, I guess I need to resort to reaching out to Elon Musk publicly on
Twitter and sure enough, that's what he did.
So he writes dear Elon Musk, 9 days ago, the access to my work computer
was cut along with about 200 other Twitter employees.
However, your head of human resources 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?
Now, Elon callously responded with this.
What work have you been doing?
I mean, I don't know how many employees are left at Twitter, but
you should probably know as the CEO of the company.
But nonetheless, Thorleifsson responded and said that he would have to break
Twitter's confidentiality agreement in order to discuss that openly on Twitter.
Elon Musk, gave him permission to do so and
then he proceeded to explain exactly what he does through his work at Twitter.
But apparently that wasn't good enough for
Elon Musk because he responded with pics or it didn't happen.
Then he replied to himself with a youtube clip of a firing scene from Office Space
because he's definitely an adult engaging in adult conversation on Twitter.
I've got more before I get to it Jake.
>> First of all, I'm amazed by what we found out about Elon I mean,
how is this guy successful in anything?
I mean, you see it play out live right in front of our eyes,
he's a child, he has no impulse control.
He doesn't think things through, not very rational, how the hell did he get here?
I mean, I think that for people whose dads own emerald minds,
the world must be so much easier than we realize.
>> Come on.
>> Like I know that we know that for rich people it's much easier than we have, but
apparently it's infinitely easier.
Like, they just have to wake up and they're gonna fall over a fortune, right?
Because God, this guy can't think straight at all I mean, for
even if you put everything else aside, which you shouldn't, the moral issues,
etcetera, he's begging for a massive lawsuit.
>> Definitely, definitely.
And I'm curious what's gonna happen because if he doesn't,
if they don't lose a ton of money because of this,
then there's no justice in the world and I'll explain why in a second.
>> So Jake is saying that because the interaction with this now
fired employee gets a lot worse.
So Halli responds to Elon Musk, the Office Space clip and
all of that by saying 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, maybe with a letter or something,
which didn't happen for 9 days despite multiple emails to you and others.
And he asked Elon to also pay him what he's owed for the work that he did do.
And here's where it gets incredibly disturbing and disgusting.
Elon then responds to a tweet criticizing how he handled
the situation with accusations saying.
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.
Now, muscular dystrophy is a real condition that does lead to disability,
and unfortunately, that is the case with Thorleifsson because as a result of his
diagnosis, he has to use mobility devices and that's actually well documented.
In fact, Elon Musk, if you got off Twitter for a minute and actually paid attention
to the workplace that he's fostering, maybe he'd be aware of that.
Now in his home country of Iceland, he even started a fund,
Thorleifsson did that builds wheelchair ramps for other people with disabilities.
So gives you a sense of what kind of guy he is, which is a pretty great guy.
But anyway, so this morning,
Thorleifsson detailed his disability to Elon on Twitter, here's what he wrote.
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,
I can however, write for an hour or two at a time.
This wasn't a problem at Twitter 1.0, meaning before Elon Musk took over,
since I was a senior director and my job was mostly to help teams move forward,
give them strategic and tactical guidance.
But as I told HR I'm assuming that's the confidential health information you
are sharing, I can't work as a hands on designer for the reasons outlined above.
I'm typing this on my phone, by the way,
it's easier for me because I only need to use one finger I hope that helps.
Let me know if you are going to pay what you owe me I think you can afford it.
Now, eventually Thorleifsson received an email from Twitter's head of HR who
confirmed that he is in fact fired.
He is no longer employed by the company, but it turns out that this
isn't the first time that Elon Musk has mistreated disabled employees.
In fact, according to insider disabled employees at Twitter have filed a class
action lawsuit against the company in November.
Saying Musk's new, extremely hardcore work culture and
orders to work long hours at high intensity, forced them to resign.
Now, the big update to the story is that Elon Musk probably due
to the advice from his attorneys has apologized and he says this.
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.
>> Yeah See he's an idiot, he's a child and
he acts impulsively because look guys, are there some guys who doggett at work?
Yeah, sure, and are some excuses kind of obvious?
So, like I was spraying me now, I've had it for
a while if I said I couldn't type because of it.
This guy has muscular dystrophy, discriminate against him when he
was your employee is not a little problematic, it's massively problematic.
Like if I did that, if I said half of what Elon Musk said, we'd immediately
like we'd be sued out of existence, literally out of existence okay.
And so I don't know if there's any justice in the world, I don't know if that ass
covering operation, which Elon Musk clearly does not actually believe is gonna
do the job, but that guy should sue the bejesus out of Elon Musk and Twitter.
And he deserves to get paid a lot of money based on the current laws that we have,
and by the way, if he doesn't, there's no justice in the world if he doesn't, right.
Because a small business would definitely be crushed by a lawsuit like that,
I don't know if Elon can make it go away with his army of lawyers.
And he called the guy lazy, they bought his company, he was so
successful Twitter bought his company.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to found and run a company?
And a guy has muscular dystrophy on top,
it's like the least lazy guy in America right?
It's Musk is such both an idiot and a really bad guy.
>> Well, the other thing I want to just quickly mention is even in his apology
right, there is this unwillingness to take personal responsibility for what he did.
And this claim that he acted the way he did because of others,
it was the others misinforming me, right?
In fact, he says verbatim, it was based on things I was told that were untrue or
in some cases true, but not meant.
You're the CEO like you're the CEO of the company what do you mean?
It happened because people told me misinformation.
You are the CEO the head of the company.
>> Look, I just called him an idiot and
I'm gonna do it again even though he's the second richest man in the world.
And you're supposed to apparently have all for
the wealthy because there's like geniuses, we can't understand.
That's the mythology that you hear in America, but
idiot check to see if you actually fired him.
The guy says it looks like I've been fired, but
I'm not even positive you guys didn't even send me a letter.
Remember when I said you can't fire three quarters and this is not just me,
it's everybody, three quarters.
You can't fire three quarters of your employees and
hoped that the company still runs just as, it was before that's not a thing, right.
So the other day there was a big headline about, my God,
nothing's working on Twitter, the links aren't working, this is working that.
Of course it's not working, they fired three quarters of their employees,
there is such a hot mess right now that guy's getting fired.
Don't even get letters, let alone no money that they are owed.
So, hey, dum, dum, do you want to check first with HR, before you go shooting off
at the mouth on Twitter and potentially costing your company millions of dollars.
Nope, dum, dum has to act because he's a baby.
>> You know, I gotta say TYT with its limitations, with resources and
all that stuff, never late in paying me [LAUGH] Like on top of it,
I've been here for 16 years always on top of it.
>> Look guys, the thing, no but this goes to the injustice of America, okay, so
I'm proud that we run a moral company and we always pay people on time.
Not just employees but people, we do contracts with a lot of other companies
they cut a lot of corners and don't pay people when they said they would, okay.
And, and especially third parties, let alone employees, right?
We don't do that but part of it is so we make,
we would make that choice either way.
But a lot of small business don't have a choice because if they don't pay their
bills, they're gonna get crushed in 1000 different ways.
The bigger the companies are the mythology in America because of corporate media is,
the bigger the companies are, the more you can trust them.
No, the bigger the companies are oftentimes the more they get away with
because of their lawyers, they can do way worse to the employees.
They can do salary theft and all those different things 1000 other things and
get away with it.
No, watch out for the big companies way more than the small business,
small business are actual American citizens right.
These giant corporations are machines that have captured our government that's
why they let Elon like, and Elon is in charge of several of those machines,
those corporate machines.
And that's why he gets to get away with things that a small business owner would
never be able to get away with.