Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference & Exhibit, March 9, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — If you’re not told you’re fired, are you really fired? On Twitter, probably. But sometimes you get your job back… if you want.

Haraldur Thorleifsson, who until recently worked on the social network, logged into his computer to work, only to find that, like 200 other employees, he had no access.

Like others before him during the chaotic months of layoffs and layoffs since Elon Musk took over the company, he may have imagined he had lost his job.

Instead, after nine days of not hearing Twitter tell him whether or not he was still working, Thorleifsson decided to tweet Musk to see if he could get the businessman’s attention and get a response on his strange employment situation.

“Maybe if enough people retweet me, you’ll respond to me here?” “, he tweeted on Monday.

He finally got his answer after a surreal exchange of tweets with Musk, who asked him about his work, questioning his disability and his need for special accommodations (Thorleifsson, better known as “Halli”, suffers from muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair). on wheels), tweeting that Thorleifsson has a “top active Twitter account and is a millionaire” and that “the reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout.” Meanwhile, Thorleifsson said he received an email telling him he was no longer employed by the company.

However, Musk changed his mind on Tuesday afternoon.

“I would like to apologize to Halli for misunderstanding her situation. It was based on things that were reported to me that weren’t true or in some cases were true but not significant,” he said. he tweeted. “He plans to stay on Twitter.”

Thorleifsson did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment after Musk’s tweet. In an earlier email, he said he found the whole experience “surreal”.

“You had every right to fire me. But it would have been nice if you let me know!” he tweeted at Musk.

Thorleifsson, who lives in Iceland, will no longer be part of the business: “I will be opening a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik very soon,” he tweeted. “He’s named after my mother.”

Twitter did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

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