Elon Musk issued an apology to the Twitter employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson Aka Halli, after calling him out for not doing any “actual work” when the latter asked the billionaire why he was fired without prior notice.
The latest exchange between the Twitter boss and his employee comes around the time of hundreds and thousands of firing at the company since it was bought by Elon in 2022.
Halli may have come to be known as someone the billionaire publicly apologized to but in real life, he is a multi-talented artist, whose creativity stretches from digital art to music.
Who is Halli?
Halli is a 45-year-old multi-talented artist, who is associated with Twitter since 2021 after his company was acquired by the microblogging site.
Based in Ice Land, he is popularly known as Halli, and his official website reveals that he has genetic muscle dystrophy, specifically called Dysferlinopathy. He uses a wheelchair to move around slowly.
Apart from his previously owned company, which designed digital brands and experiences, Halli has founded a non-profit organization.
He has won a number of awards for his work as a designer which was even recognized by the president of Iceland and Halli was honored as the person of the year in Iceland in 2022.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance and Philosophy from the University of Iceland. He took up M.S. in Economics but didn’t complete the course.
Haraldur Thorleifsson has been working with Twitter since 2021
Halli apparently led an innovation team among which spearheaded Communities on Twitter and also was a part of the launch of the edit button, a feature that was recently introduced.
The Guardian reports, he chose to get paid by Twitter in wages instead of getting a lump sum payout for his company as the first option would allow him to pay higher taxes to his country, thus supporting its social services and safety net. Teh artist was lauded in Icelandic media for his decision.
Among other things he’s passionate about are music, social service, food, and beverages.
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Halli is due to release his album, The Radio Won’t Let Me Sleep’ in 2023 and along with his wife, he is working on an artist residency, studio, and gallery, which will open in 2025.
The multi-talented artist has written a couple of pieces on topics such as inclusion and created an interview series and podcast around mental health and disabilities.
Elon Musk apologizes to Twitter employee
Halli claimed in a Tweet that he realized his work computer was locked nine days ago when he tried to access it. However, HR allegedly couldn’t confirm if he was still a Twitter employee and he did not receive any prior warning or wasn’t notified about being fired.
So, he wrote to Elon and when he didn’t receive any response, he approached the Twitter boss directly on his own platform by getting hundreds and thousands of users to retweet his original post, prompting a response from the billionaire.
Elon did respond, but he didn’t have the nicest things to say about Halli. After publicly asking Halli a series of questions related to his role to confirm his employment, Elon wrote:
“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.”
However, when Elon’s tweet backfired when Halli’s co-workers defended him and the Twitter owner claimed he figured out what’s “real vs what I was told” after getting on a video call with him.
He apologized in another tweet by saying:
“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.”
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