SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 If you’re not told you are fired, are you really fired? At Twitter, probably. And then, sometimes, you get your job back \u2014 if you want it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently was employed at Twitter, logged in to his computer last Sunday to do some work \u2014 only to find himself locked out, along with 200 others.<\/p>\n
He might have figured, as others before him<\/a> have in the chaotic months<\/a> of layoffs<\/a> and firings since Elon Musk took over the company, that he was out of a job.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, after nine days of no answer from Twitter as to whether or not he was still employed, Thorleifsson decided to tweet at Musk to see if he could catch the billionaire’s attention and get an answer to his Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s job situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe if enough people retweet you\u2019ll answer me here?\u201d he wrote on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n Eventually, he got his answer after a surreal Twitter exchange with Musk, who proceeded to quiz him about his work, question his disability and need for accommodations (Thorleifsson, who goes by \u201cHalli,\u201d has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair) and tweet that Thorleifsson has a \u201cprominent, active Twitter account and is wealthy” and the \u201creason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout.\u201d While the exchange was going on, Thorleifsson said he received an email that he was no longer employed.<\/p>\n Late Tuesday afternoon, however, Musk had a change of heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI 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,\u201d he tweeted. \u201cHe is considering remaining at Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n Thorleifsson did not immediately respond to a message for comment following Musk’s tweet. In an earlier email, he called the experience \u201csurreal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou had every right to lay me off. But it would have been nice to let me know!\u201d he tweeted to Musk.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thorleifsson, who lives in Iceland, has about 151,000 Twitter followers (Musk has over 130 million). He joined Twitter in 2021, when the company, under the prior management, acquired his startup Ueno.\u00a0<\/p>\n