Elon Musk tweets rare apology for ex-employee Halli Thorleifsson

Twitter boss Elon Musk has apologised to an employee he recently had an exchange with on the platform. The social media firm recently fired Halli Thorleifsson. 

Halli, 45, had reached out to the billionaire on Twitter, telling him that the head of HR was not able to confirm if he was still employed. To this, Musk casually responded: "What work have you been doing?"

This followed a thread of conversation between the two where Halli had to share things he had done for the company. Musk did not seem impressed, telling the former employee that he must provide evidence. "Pics or it did not happen," the CEO tweeted. However, it was impossible for Halli to do so since his account had been blocked.

Soon, the 45-year-old received an email confirming that he had been sacked from the company.

Things did not end here. Musk ended the conversation by calling Halli "the worst", a tweet he later deleted.

But that was not it. He had a lot more to say. "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 said in a tweet, one he did not delete.

However, a few hours later, Musk seemed to have experienced a change of heart. He apologised to the former employee and offered him his job back.

"I would like to apologise 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 tweeted.

"He is considering remaining at Twitter," he added.

Senior director in product design for Twitter, the 45-year-old told the BBC exclusively on Monday that the confusion around his employment status had been "extremely stressful". He also called the whole scenario "strange".

"I opened my computer on Sunday morning nine days ago and saw that the screen was grey and locked, indicating that I had been locked out of my Twitter accounts", the outlet quoted him as saying.

When a few days passed, Halli began to reach out to relevant people including "Elon and the head of HR". However, the head of HR was not able to answer Halli's questions, despite emailing him twice.

The Iceland-based businessman, who founded Ueno in Reykjavik in 2014, sold the creative design agency to Twitter in early 2021.

Halli said he was concerned that the billionaire would not honour the contract he had signed with the social media firm when he sold his company.

The whole situation is very stressful for the man because this was his retirement fund, "a way to take care of my family as my disease progresses". For Halli, it is hard to believe that the richest man on the planet would refuse to stand by contracts.

Last month, Musk reportedly sacked another 200 Twitter employees which means the company now has a little over 2,000 staff members, compared to 7,500 in October.

Halli said that while it was any company's right to let go of employees, "they usually tell people about it."

He has muscular dystrophy and has campaigned in Iceland for better wheelchair access.