In latest take on the row over mass layoffs in Twitter since he took over the social media platform, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he has rehired two employees who were “laid off” last month. He shared a picture with the two men and tweeted, “Welcoming back Ligma & Johnson!”
“Important to admit when I’m wrong & firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes,” his tweet further read.
But there is a catch in this entire episode.
The two men were never actually the employees of Twitter.
Last month, the duo’s pictures went viral on social media after they were pictured outside the main entrance of Twitter’s San Francisco building, claiming to have been “laid off” by Musk. They were pictured holding cardboard boxes and were thought to have been part of the data engineers’ team who were let go.
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They introduced themselves as ‘Rahul Ligma’ and ‘Daniel Johnson’, with the former being a reference to a popular internet meme. ‘Ligma’ held a copy of former US First Lady Michelle Obama’s book ‘Becoming’ while speaking to reporters.
They had tricked several media outlets as reports of Musk axing staffers began to make rounds.
Musk, however, seemed to have got the prank as he tweeted a rather witty response to the sacking of ‘Ligma’ and ‘Johnson’. “Ligma Johnson had it coming,” the world’s richest man wrote in the post with two pictures of the duo standing outside Twitter’s office and holding the carboard boxes.
Musk’s latest tweet can be deemed as a way of firing back at the Twitter trolls or individuals who have been criticising his decision to fire several employees since becoming the new owner of the micro blogging site.
This comes a day after the new owner of Twitter fired an employee via a tweet after he said Musk’s post on the social media platform being “super slow” on Android devices was “wrong”. The Twitter thread between the employee, who claimed to have been with Twitter for over five years, and Musk quickly gained steam on the platform. Several users called the employee out for taking out his personal dissatisfaction against his boss on a public platform, and to one such tweet, Musk replied, “He’s fired”.