Twitter’s new boss Elon Musk, who is known for taking unorthodox ways to run his business, has reportedly hired a man who pretended to be fired from the company during the first layoff. .
The billionaire laid off nearly 3,500 employees in the first wave of layoffs within a week of acquiring the social media firm. This happened when Daniel Francis and his friend Rahul Legma, a man who did not work at the company, were allegedly fired.
According to JEE News report, the two claimed to be engineers at Twitter and told social media that they were fired as soon as they left the Twitter office. It was later revealed that he was never even hired there.
While any other CEO would be outraged by the spread of misinformation and fake news, Musk, who likes to poke fun at himself, hires Francis into the company. Francis is now officially a Twitter employee, also a software engineer who is part of the internal Slack channel, the outlet reported. However, he does not have a formal position yet.
Francis and Legma announced the news of their firing before the vacation began. Musk seemed to enjoy the joke and even welcomed the two, saying “it was a mistake” he fired them. Responding to the joke with a joke, the billionaire joked about hiring them back into the company.
“It’s important to admit when I’m wrong and that firing them was indeed one of my biggest mistakes,” he wrote.
At the time, most people did not know that both Francis and Legma had never worked there.
Welcoming back Ligma & Johnson! pic.twitter.com/LEhXV95Njj
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2022
Not long ago, Musk broke his silence on Twitter’s layoffs, claiming he had “no choice” to lay off thousands of Twitter employees just days after buying the company.
Musk tweeted how he had “no choice” over the move as the company was facing significant financial losses.
“As for Twitter losing power, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing more than $4M/day,” he wrote. “Everyone who quit was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50 percent more than the legally required limit.”
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
According to JEE News, sources close to the trial revealed that Musk planned to lay off half of Twitter’s roughly 7,500 employees. In light of the news, Tesla’s CEO took to the newly acquired social media platform to explain his stance.
Employees were reportedly told to stay home and wait for an email about their future at the company.
Musk tweeted on Friday, November 4, 2022, “Due to activist groups pressuring customers, Twitter’s revenue has fallen sharply, although nothing has changed from content moderation and we’re trying to satisfy activists.” I have tried everything possible.” “Too messed up! They’re trying to kill free speech in America.”
In response to the action, several employees moved quickly to file a class-action lawsuit Thursday in federal court in San Francisco on behalf of Twitter workers, according to NPR.
