Mr Musk had accused his employee of doing no actual work, of being "the worst" and more - after he had asked whether he was still employed by Twitter, having apparently failed to get a response any other way.
The Twitter boss said that he had received bad information about the situation, and had now had a video call with the affected staff member to apologise.
Icelandic entrepreneur Halli Thorleifsson - who sold his company to Twitter and has been voted as the country's person of the year - had sent a direct public tweet to the billionaire after he was locked out of his work's computer system, telling Musk he could not get HR to respond to him.
Musk had responded with a tweet which appeared to question Mr Thorleifsson's claim, before saying: "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."
In a subsequent tweet, he added: "But was he fired? No, you can't be fired if you weren't working in the first place!"
Denne historien er fra March 09, 2023-utgaven av The Independent.
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Denne historien er fra March 09, 2023-utgaven av The Independent.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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