After Musk claimed the former employee “did no actual work,” the staffer calmly directed passive-aggressive insults right back at the billionaire.

Excuse Me, Do I Still Work Here?

Elon Musk brawled online with a former Twitter employee who didn’t know whether he was fired Tuesday, accusing the staffer of exploiting his disability.

Haraldur “Halli” Thorleifsson, who has muscular dystrophy, joined Twitter in 2021 after it acquired the creative agency he founded: Ueno.

He said on Twitter that he was unable to confirm whether he was still a Twitter employee nine days after being locked out of his work computer, despite reaching out to the head of HR and Musk himself through email.

At the time, Twitter had laid off at least 200 workers, or some 10% of its remaining workforce.

In search of an answer, Thorleifsson tweeted at Musk, who responded with the question: “What work have you been doing?”

After being given permission by Musk to break confidentiality, Thorleifsson listed several of his accomplishments, including leading “design crits to help level up design across the company.”

“Level up from what design to what? Pics or it didn’t happen,” Musk replied.

“We haven’t hired design roles in 4 months. What changes did you make to help with the youths?”

Thorleifsson reminded Musk that he couldn’t access any pictures because he was locked out of his work computer.

Musk stopped replying to the tweets, but hours later he returned to the platform to lob invective at his former employee.

Musk Vs. Halli

“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,” Musk tweeted, apparently referring to Thorleifsson. “Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that.”

“But was he fired? No, you can’t be fired if you weren’t working in the first place,” he added.

In a later Twitter thread, Thorleifsson said he could type for one or two hours at a time before his hands cramped, but that in pre-Musk Twitter, that wasn’t a problem because he was a senior director.

He added that despite his crippling disability, he worked hard for years to build Ueno.

“We grew fast and made money,” he said. “I think that’s what you are referring to when you say independently wealthy? That I independently made my money, as opposed to say, inherited an emerald mine.”

Thorleifsson made several more passive-aggressive jabs at Musk.

“I joined at a time when the company was growing fast,” he wrote. “You kind of did the opposite. The company had a fair amount of issues, but then again, most bigger companies do. Or even small companies, like Twitter today.”

Thorleifsson said that immediately following his back-and-forth with Musk, Twitter’s head of HR confirmed that he had indeed been fired from the company.

See what others are saying: (Business Insider) (CNN) (Yahoo)

Industry leaders hope the move will encourage other platforms to change their policies on cannabis advertising.

Twitter Updates Ad Rules

Twitter announced Wednesday that the company is changing its policies to allow cannabis companies to run ads on the platform.

The decision makes Twitter the first social media platform to allow cannabis ads in the U.S., where it is legal in nearly half of all states but not at the federal level. The company, however, did include a number of restrictions under the new policy.

Most significantly, companies are prohibited from running ads that promote the sale of cannabis, with the exception of “ads for topical (non-ingestible) hemp-derived CBD topical products containing equal to or less than the 0.3% THC government-set threshold.” 

As far as what advertisers can show, Twitter did not explicitly say, but it has been reported that they will be allowed to promote their brands and provide informational content.   

Beyond that, all advertisers “must be licensed by the appropriate authorities,” authorized by Twitter, and they can only advertise in locations where they are licensed.

There are also rules about what these companies can show. For example, they cannot target ads for people under 21 — nor can they show people using cannabis or under the influence. Additionally, there are bans on making claims “of efficacy or health benefits” as well as false or misleading claims.

Twitter made it clear that advertisers are liable for ensuring that they are in compliance “with all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and advertising guidelines.” 

A Possible Growing Trend

Twitter’s new move policy has been widely cheered by the industry, and already, companies have begun to take advantage of this new update.

According to Reuters, the medical and recreational cannabis provider Trulieve Cannabis Corp has launched a multistate ad campaign on Twitter. Other companies that make cannabis accessories like PAX — which is an industry leader best known for its vaporizers — have also started advertising their devices, per Marijuana Moment.

“We’re excited to be among the first of Twitter’s cannabis advertising partners and be able to engage customers more directly,” PAX Vice President of Marketing Luke Droulez said in a press release. “After decades of prohibitionist propaganda, there is an opportunity to destigmatize and normalize the plant and its use.”

Twitter’s decision raises questions about whether other social media companies will follow suit. There has been some movement in the space: just last month, Google updated its policies to allow ads for FDA-approved pharmaceuticals containing CBD and “topical, hemp-derived CBD products with THC content of 0.3% or less.” 

Those ads, however, are limited to California, Colorado, and Puerto Rico, and some formats are banned, like YouTube Masthead ads.

Some in the industry have speculated that this change is not representative of broader trends, and instead just a decision Twitter made because it is struggling to keep advertisers under Elon Musk’s leadership.

The company has reportedly lost more than half of its top advertisers, and major firms have actively told clients not to buy ads since his takeover. To that point, Twitter is trying exceptionally hard to get cannabis advertisers.

Amy Deneson, the co-founder of the Cannabis Media Council, a trade association focused on cannabis education, told Politico that the platform is not setting any minimum ad buys for cannabis companies, a significant departure from the $5,000 to $10,000 many advertising platforms require.

Beyond that, the company is also offering a one-to-one match for every dollar cannabis advertisers spend on ads until the end of March — so a $50 campaign would actually be a $100 one.

Even if the move is just a bid to attract new advertisers at a time when the company is dealing with financial troubles, if it proves to be successful, it is hard to imagine other platforms would not follow in Twitter’s footsteps.

See what others are saying: (Axios) (Politico) (Reuters)

Experts say that the derailment is an unsurprising outcome of a profit-maximizing operational model utilized by most rail companies paired with industry lobbying against federal safety rules.

A Precarious Model

Concerns about railroad safety regulations have been reignited recently following the derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, forcing officials to do a “controlled” burn to prevent a more dangerous explosion.  

Specifically, debates about the profit-maximizing operational model called Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) that most of the rail industry uses have again drawn scrutiny. The idea behind PSR is basically for operators to do more with less in order to maximize revenues by driving down operating expenses.

To do this, PSR emphasizes running strict schedules, streamlining routes, and cutting costs, equipment, and employees. Experts say that, in theory, PSR increases efficiency while lowering costs.

In reality, rail operators have so much market power, so instead of doing more with less, they are able to do less with less.

As a result, rail carrier companies are essentially incentivized to spend less money on rail operations and more stock buybacks or dividends to measure success in the eyes of Wall Street.

Under the PSR model, the railroad workforce has been totally gutted, the workers that remain are overworked to point of exhaustion, and safety precautions have been sacrificed for profits. This matter was also discussed heavily in the public forum last fall, as was at the heart of the railroad strike that was narrowly averted at the end of last year.

Among other demands, the 12 unions involved in negotiations had asked for better working conditions as well as more flexible schedules for things like medical appointments — benefits that were denied as the result of a model that encourages railroads to do less with less. 

That has been exemplified by Norfolk Southern — which operates the train that derailed in Ohio. The carrier has continually increased its dividend, and last March, it announced a $10 billion stock buyback program while simultaneously refusing to give workers basic benefits like fair pay and sick leave.

The company also reported record-breaking operating revenues totaling $12.7 billion last year.

Railroad Workers Blame PSR for Ohio Derailment

In a recent press release, the Railroad Workers United (RWU), an inter-union alliance of rail workers, argued that the Ohio derailment was just a predictable outcome of a system operated by PSR. In fact, RWU went as far as to explicitly claim that “the root causes of this wreck” were “associated with the hedge fund initiated operating model known as [PSR].” 

The group noted that, as investigators have said, the “immediate cause” of the wreck “appears to have been a 19th-century-style mechanical failure of the axle on one of the cars.”

“There is no way in the 21st century, save from a combination of incompetence and disregard to public safety, that such a defect should still be threatening our communities,” the statement continued. 

RWU stated that the profit-incentivizing created by PSR “has made cutting costs, employees, procedures, and resources the top priority.” 

The group said that Norfolk Southern and other carriers “have eliminated many of the critical mechanical positions and locations necessary to guarantee protection against these kinds of failures” while also petitioning regulators “for relief from historically required maintenance and inspections.”

“The [East] Palestine wreck is the tip of the iceberg and a red flag,” RWU Secretary Ron Kaminkow told The Guardian. “If something is not done, then it’s going to get worse, and the next derailment could be cataclysmic.”

Corporate Influence on Federal Regulations

Beyond the internal systems used by rail carriers, the powerful groups have also had a significant influence on the federal rules that regulate their industry.

According to documents reviewed in a report by The Lever, Norfolk Southern “helped kill” a federal rule that intended to upgrade rail braking systems for trains carrying hazardous materials. 

Beyond that, when the transportation safety regulations in place today were first created, “a federal agency sided with industry lobbyists and limited regulations governing the transport of hazardous compounds.”

“The decision effectively exempted many trains hauling dangerous materials — including the one in Ohio — from the ‘high-hazard’ classification and its more stringent safety requirements,” The Lever reported, adding federal officials told the outlet that the Norfolk Standard train was not being regulated as a “high-hazard flammable train.”

Much of the modern influence on federal rules can be traced back to 2014, when the Obama administration proposed new safety regulations for trains carrying hazardous materials. Those rules, The Lever notes, were whittled down after industry lobbyists successfully pressured administration officials to focus on crude oil and exempt lots of other combustible chemicals — including the ones involved in the Ohio disaster.

Federal protections were scaled back even more in 2017 when the Trump administration repealed a part of that rule mandating that rail cars carrying hazardous flammable materials must be equipped with electronic braking systems, which would allow those trains to stop quicker than conventional brakes.

That move was backed both by Senate Republicans alongside industry lobbyists that had donated more than $6 million to GOP campaigns in the 2016 election cycle.

Although Norfolk Southern had “previously touted” the new electronic braking technology, it lobbied in favor of the repeal, arguing that it would  “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.”

Experts told the outlet that had these rules been in place, the Ohio derailment could have gone much differently.

“Would [electronic] brakes have reduced the severity of this accident? Yes,” said Steven Ditmeyer, a former senior official at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). “The railroads will test new features. But once they are told they have to do it… they don’t want to spend the money.”

See what others are saying: (The Guardian) (The Lever) (The American Prospect)