Because of the conditions of the guy's contract after his company was bought by Twitter they are on the hook for $100 million if his employment is terminated early.
Hence the lame non-apology and 'considering remaining at Twitter' because it means either the payout or a lawsuit lol
What the fuck. How do you manage to land a $100 million early termination clause
I think it's the equivalent of them being forced to pay his salary for x many years, and since he was previously a CEO of his own company before they got bought, its huge money. Supposedly he was one of the people on a "DO NOT FIRE" list because of how huge the contract was.
I find it a little hard to feel bad for millionaires, but mocking disabilities is shitty no matter how you look at it, and this guy was apparently one of the less shitty ones. He made minor headlines for taking the deal in cash rather than stock options, because not tax dodging is notable for rich people I guessIt was so he could pay it in Iceland instead at a 46% tax rate, as thanks to his home country for the free education he got. He's also got a project devoted to installing 1500 accessibility ramps all over Iceland.
As people to pick fights with go, Elon could not have picked a worse target. This guy's like a national hero over there.
Unrelated, but its very weird to me that the US is one of the most handicap accessible countries in the world. Having briefly visited the UK once, it's very surprising how few ramps, automatic doors, etc there are. You'd think it be a higher priority given that its really not that hard to do and makes a big difference for a significant portion of the population.
There was a really big push for the ADA back when Americans actually had some influence in American politics
Here in Stockholm at least they are trying to gut every accomodation possible, cutting travel services to blind people and telling them to just memorize train routes, while also removing audio announcements from train platforms for being a nuisance.
And now they're also removing train attendants so if anyone in a wheelchair or other mobility aid needs help getting on the train, the actual driver has to run out and do it before running back to drive the train.
He owned a company that was bought by Twitter and instead of getting the payout in the form of shares or other benefits, he chose it as a salary so that he'd have to pay more taxes on it in Iceland -- at least, that's the reason he gave.
This means they had to hire him as an employee and essentially pay him what they bought his company for over X years. If they fire him before that time, they owe him (I imagine) the lump sum that remains.
And yes the fact that his wage was taxed 46% whereas accepting shares or a lump sum would have been taxed at 22% is not lost on me.
Imagine being the lone remaining engineer cranking out twitter blue features to make twitter profitable only for Elon to piss away all the revenue twitter blue has made because he harassed a disabled guy
The tragedy here is that the vast majority of workers does not have the kind of contract, the wealth and the platform to make their boss grovel
Yeah I was attempting to explain to my coworkers how Musk was violating several American labor laws in that exchange. You can't fire an employee without notice and you can't discriminate based on disability. Furthermore this guy had a contract for millions of dollars that hadn't been paid. One of my coworkers said, "It's Musk's company now. He made it private, so he can do what he wants."
American understanding of workers' rights. Employer can do no wrong if it's a private business.
he is considering remaining at twitter
His lawyers either negotiated no defamation lawsuit in exchange for an extremely high paying position that does nothing all day, or the guy is a masochist for doing actual work for Musk after this debacle
i dont think he likes Elon very much considering the emerald mine jokes.
I've heard speculation that twitter/musk would have to pay so much that they legitimately may not have enough money to do so, and therefore this guy staying on is gonna let him keep getting paid the normal arrangement as before.
If the 100 million single payout for firing him is true and Twitter is so in the hole they can't pay that, I don't think this guy will have his job long either way and should have pulled the trigger to get something.
I know nothing about this Halli guy, but some folks on Reddit were saying that he's actually a pretty big deal in Iceland. He's got a reputation as a sort of hero philanthropist over there after building a bunch of wheelchair ramps or something. The details really aren't important - the point is that he basically has the reputation that Elon feels like he deserves and I guarantee you that's what this was all about before the lawyers stepped in.
"How could people love this loser more than me? He doesn't even have his own failing social media company!"
And now Twitter's on the hook for a hundred mil. Beautiful.
I think you hit the nail on the head. When twitter bought his company he took the money in wages so he could pay more taxes into icelands social services. He's also opening a restaurant in Reykjavik. Same type of reaction to the cave diver.
My heart and my best intentions tell me it's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.
I hope he forces them to pay him out or an equally huge settlement at takes down the whole wretched thing with him on the way out.
