Praise for Disabled Employee Once Mocked by Musk Spreads... "Paying More Taxes for Welfare"

As Controversy Grows, Musk Finally Apologizes to the Employee Involved

A Twitter employee who became a topic of discussion after being publicly mocked by Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter, has been praised for voluntarily paying higher taxes despite his disability to contribute to public welfare. As criticism of Musk's behavior intensified, he eventually apologized to the employee.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

According to CNBC on the 8th (local time), Haraldur Thorleifsson, who worked as the head of design at Twitter, sold his digital brand agency called Ueno, which he founded in 2021, to Twitter and received the payment as a salary. Thorleifsson explained that he paid extra taxes in Iceland to contribute to the welfare and public services he benefited from as a disabled person. If he had received the payment as a lump sum, he would have had to pay 22% capital gains tax, but by receiving it as a salary, he paid 46% income tax.

He is also known to have raised funds to install 100 wheelchair ramps in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, and received awards from the Reykjavik City and the Icelandic Human Rights Center.

Thorleifsson became a topic of conversation on the 7th after being mocked by Musk on social media regarding his dismissal and subsequently receiving an apology.

According to reports, Thorleifsson recently discovered that his access to his work computer had been blocked. He is the founder of the design agency acquired by Twitter in 2021 and reportedly became a full-time Twitter employee as part of the acquisition deal. The day his computer access was blocked coincided with another round of layoffs at Twitter. Thorleifsson inquired with HR to confirm his employment status but received no clear response.

Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter. [Image source=AP Yonhap News]

In response, Thorleifsson sent a direct message to Musk via Twitter. He said, "My access to my work computer has been blocked for 9 days. The same applies to 200 others," and asked, "Yet HR says they cannot confirm if I am still employed. Can you answer this?"

Musk replied, "What work did you do?" Thorleifsson listed his design projects and mentioned his contributions, including hiring design managers and helping to raise the overall design standards across the company.

Musk then mocked, "What design and what level did you raise? No proof, no deal." He added, "Thorleifsson has an active Twitter account and is quite wealthy. From what I heard, he has barely worked in the last four months and claimed he has a disability that prevents typing, but he posted many tweets during that period."

Thorleifsson revealed that he has been using a wheelchair for 20 years due to a degenerative disease called muscular dystrophy, and that his problems have progressed from his legs to his arms.

He explained, "I cannot do tasks like typing or using a mouse for long periods, but I can do so for one or two hours at a time. This was not an issue at Twitter. I was a senior director, and my role was mainly to help the team move forward and provide them with strategic and tactical guidance."

As the controversy escalated, Musk eventually apologized to Thorleifsson. He said, "I had a video call with Thorleifsson and apologized for misunderstanding the situation. Some of it was not true, and some was true but insignificant." He added, "Thorleifsson is considering staying at Twitter."

Meanwhile, since acquiring Twitter in October last year, Musk has pushed for massive layoffs, cutting half of the 7,500 employees. To save costs, he also terminated contracts with cleaning service providers and auctioned off the bluebird sculpture, a symbol of the company.