# Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter - now the Pit edition (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 25, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442 "2022-04-25T22:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 185
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3684 "2023-03-08T22:40:44Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Right, I was just wondering if AL128 knew what jurisdiction it was under. I haven’t seen anything to that effect, and in general, I would assume it would be under US jurisdiction. sorry, no specific knowledge in this case … but as mentioned above I am pretty sure, the juristiction is defined by the contract and so mutually agreed upon. My point was more in the direction that for example Twitter let go a good part of its staff in europe NOT following local labor laws. That IS coming back to bite them in the arse - and cost them dearly. Googling “Twitter Deutschland Kündigung” (Twitter germany terminations) yields a couple of pages of news articles of fired german ex-twitter-workers organizing and filing for protection. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3685 "2023-03-08T22:50:29Z")
> [@Al128](#): > > My point was more in the direction that for example Twitter let go a good part of its staff in europe NOT following local labor laws. That IS coming back to bite them in the arse - and cost them dearly. Fair enough, and my understanding is that many of the US workers also had contracts that are being violated by Elon’s purge. But all that, US and European, probably doesn’t total up to this one guy’s severance. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2023, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3686 "2023-03-08T22:52:37Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > So if Halli decides not to come back to work, he quit rather than was fired. You are also protected if you leave a hostile work environment. I don’t know how it works out with his contract, exactly, but for things like unemployment insurance, a claim of hostile work environment will get you covered. And I’d say that he has pretty good evidence of what kind of environment Elon was bringing. If you publicly disclose someone’s disability and mock them for it, that seems, IMHO like a pretty straightforward case. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3687 "2023-03-09T02:52:55Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You are also protected if you leave a hostile work environment. I don’t know how it works out with his contract, exactly, but for things like unemployment insurance, a claim of hostile work environment will get you covered. That can be hard to prove. I left a job from a hostile work environment, where I dealt with an FBI investigation of cyberattacks, all my coworkers getting fired and having to do their jobs as well as mine, and higher-ups throwing tantrums and literally screaming at me for following written policies at the organization. Oh, and having to leave early on more than one occasion to avoid being a hostage to attempted takeovers from disgruntled armed people. Yet I was denied unemployment because I couldn’t prove it, even with testimony from other people there. The threshold is pretty damn high. I don’t think Twitter’s situation even meets it. Though again, unemployment in the US is state level, not federal, so it might vary dramatically depending on where employees are. ---
**Author:** ![DeadTreasSecretaries](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deadtreassecretaries/32/4817_2.png) [@DeadTreasSecretaries](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadTreasSecretaries)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3688 "2023-03-09T05:18:43Z")
In fairness, presumably I’m guessing your CEO didn’t state publicly in writing that he thought you were faking your disability. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3689 "2023-03-09T05:26:46Z")
LOL, no, but I’m still not sure how well that establishes a hostile work environment. But if Elon hadn’t posted a retraction, he could potentially have a defamation claim based on it. ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3690 "2023-03-09T08:49:43Z")
Apparently this is the other twitter employee on the “do not fire” list. Owned a company called Revue and was “acquihired”. Was locked out of company email same time as Halli, and ghosted by HR (he has “probably not product @ twitter” in his bio). > > > Halli @iamharaldur ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3691 "2023-03-09T12:25:22Z")
> **[Is the world's richest person the world's worst boss? What it's like working...](https://web.archive.org/web/20221116023809/https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-11-14/elon-musk-toxic-boss-timeline)** > > Elon Musk's track record as a boss is an endless scroll of impulse firings, retribution, tone-deafness on race — and the impregnation of a subordinate. This article helps explain why maybe we don’t see a lot of former employees come and say anything bad about Musk, @Sam_Stone. > [@](#): > > Because Musk makes new employees sign tough nondisclosure agreements, and because he’s developed a reputation for exacting retribution on those who cross him, we’ll never know all the stories. > [@](#): > > A pattern: If Musk perceives he’s been crossed, he does more than seethe — he seeks retribution. > [@](#): > > Another whistleblower, Martin Tripp, moved to Hungary to escape the wrath of Musk after the news site Insider ran a story about excessive scrap waste at Tesla’s battery factory in 2018. Private investigators hired by Musk to identify the source named Tripp, a factory employee. > > Tripp was fired. Tesla said he stole company data. Musk later called a reporter to say he’d heard Tripp was on his way to the factory with a gun. The local sheriff’s department later said, no, he was miles away in Reno, with no gun and no evidence he had one ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3692 "2023-03-09T13:44:01Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Yet I was denied unemployment because I couldn’t prove it, even with testimony from other people there. > > The threshold is pretty damn high. It does vary from state to state, I suppose. I had an employee successfully make the claim based on her claims of seeing another employee smoking weed at a party, off property and off the clock, and that I didn’t fire her for that. But, unemployment is decided by a bureaucrat, and it’s rare to get it overturned if either side appeals. This would be decided by a court, which I assume has a bit more oversite. I don’t know how Halli’s case would go if it went to court, but while the public twitterings certainly play a large part, the locking out of systems and ghosting by HR are relevant as well. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3693 "2023-03-09T13:56:21Z")
The thing about Halli’s case is that I don’t think Halli is stupid. He made a deal worth $100M, voluntarily chose to make that money deferred, I suspect he didn’t trap himself in a terrible legal situation where he can wind up cut out of getting any of that money. This is also a contract where, presumably, Twitter wanted Halli around as an influential contributor instead of a miserable wage slave. The terms are likely not onerous regarding his exit and payout, is it really possible that he’s literally required to keep working against his will otherwise he won’t get any of the buyout money? It seems unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3694 "2023-03-09T17:09:21Z")
The latest insanity: > ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3695 "2023-03-09T17:10:43Z")
Paywalled article, sadly. You can read a very little bit, then when you scroll you get a subscribe or else box. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3696 "2023-03-09T17:31:17Z")
He also posts some excerpts below, but yeah, it’s clear he wants you to subscribe to the digital newspaper he works for. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3697 "2023-03-09T17:37:21Z")
> [@Chelonaut](#): > > Apparently this is the other twitter employee on the “do not fire” list. This article (which I don’t remember seeing posted before) says there were 4 (including Halli and Martijn de Kuijper) on a “do not fire” list, who were all fired anyway: > **[4 senior Twitter managers were previously on a 'do not fire' list, but they...](https://www.businessinsider.com/senior-twitter-managers-do-not-fire-list-expensive-pay-report-2023-2?r=US&IR=T)** > > The ex-Twitter managers' compensation packages included accelerated stock vesting, which made them costly to fire, Platformer reported. > Four senior Twitter managers were previously put on a “do not fire” list because it would be too costly to pay them out, but all four were fired anyway, [Platformer](https://www.platformer.news/p/in-latest-round-of-twitter-cuts-some?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=7976&post_id=105457965&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email) reported. > > Esther Crawford, director of product management; Martijn de Kuijper, senior product manager; Leah Culver, senior software engineer; and Haraldur Thorleifsson, a director, were considered expensive to pay out because of the accelerated stock vesting included in their compensation packages, per Platformer. j ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3698 "2023-03-09T17:58:07Z")
I feel like Musk thinks that any agreements made by the (inferior) prior leaders shouldn’t have to be honored, because they were bad, and because he’s a new owner. So rent, salaries, etc were artifacts of prior ownership. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3699 "2023-03-09T22:53:33Z")
I don’t think its quite a conscious as that. I think it more likely that he just didn’t know about the prior agreements. He probably just asked the sole remaining HR employee to send him an Excel sheet with everyone salary on it, saw the exorbitant salary they were getting (as part of their deffered payment), figured that whatever it was they were doing could be done cheaper by someone else and so fired them. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3700 "2023-03-09T22:57:49Z")
Yeah, that’s fair. The fact that he literally waived due diligence during the acquisition says so much about his approach. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2023, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3701 "2023-03-09T23:07:48Z")
He has said something to the effect previously that he doesn’t believe in having a business plan. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3702 "2023-03-10T01:40:18Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > He has said something to the effect previously that he doesn’t beIieve in having a business plan. Well, that’s all well and good, but if _I_ didn’t believe in having a business plan, I’d think twice about buying a whole company that DOES have one. To quote Col. Ticonderoga, _GEE WHIZ!_ ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442/3703 "2023-03-10T13:49:20Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Evidence that Musk is a genius would be him talking about something technical at a genius level. To date, anything public that we know about his ideas have been remarkably unimpressive for a so-called genius. I invited @Sam_Stone to show me evidence of Musk speaking in a technical capacity at a genius level quite some time ago (or anything similar that is direct concrete evidence), but to date, nothing. I’m 100% willing to be convinced that Musk is a genius, but I require actual evidence. Since sentiments like this have been brought up multiple times in this thread already, such evidence is not extremely difficult to find but it’s also not someone else’s job to do your homework for you. For example, here is Musk talking for 40 minutes about Raptor Engines where it’s clear that he knows what he is talking about and isn’t some dilettante CEO who has merely hired the right people under him: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/E7MQb9Y4FAE/maxresdefault.jpg "Elon Musk Explains SpaceX's Raptor Engine!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7MQb9Y4FAE) At one point in the video, he mentions that in a previous video, the youtuber gets a figure wrong for an engine and uses theoretical performance rather than real world performance which is not the kind of detail you can keep track of unless you’re deep in the guts of everything. I hope my other bona fides in this thread have made it clear now that I have a pretty dim opinion of his recent antics at twitter and elsewhere but that doesn’t mean every other thing about the man is mean and bad, he’s capable of being both a man instrumental to the success at Tesla and SpaceX and also a worm brained moron making stupid, short sighted decisions. You should adjust your priors when your repeated calls for evidence doesn’t produce something, that’s not because it doesn’t exist or is particularly difficult to find, it’s just that most people can’t be bothered spending the time doing work to win an argument on the internet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=184) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-that-elon-musk-has-bought-twitter-now-the-pit-edition-part-1/963442.md?page=186)