Twitter has been ordered to pay a record fine of more than 550,000 euros (£470,000) to a former senior employee at its European headquarters in Ireland after it was found he was wrongfully fired for failing to respond to an email from Elon Musk calling on staff to be “extremely hardcore”.
When Musk paid $44 billion for the social media platform “X” in October 2022 (he renamed it “X” the following year), Gary Rooney was director of procure-to-pay for procurement in Twitter International’s Dublin office.
Within weeks of the acquisition, the billionaire sent a message to staff outlining his vision for the business.
“Going forward, we will need to get extremely hardcore to build a groundbreaking Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world,” the South African-born entrepreneur wrote.
“This means working at high intensity for long periods of time. Only excellent performance will pass.”
The message was known as a “watershed moment,” and Musk, the Tesla CEO, used the phrase again about America during an interview with former President Donald Trump late Monday, when he said Trump had shown him “the path to prosperity.”
“If you’re sure you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click ‘yes’ at the link below,” Musk wrote in an email, adding that staff who don’t agree will be given three months’ severance pay.
Ireland’s employment tribunal, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), heard that Mr Rooney did not click “yes”.
Three days later, on November 19, he received another email from the company “confirming his decision to resign and accepting his offer of voluntary resignation.”
Rooney, who had worked at the company since 2013, was reportedly deemed to have resigned on November 18 and his access to Twitter’s systems was suspended.
A week later, he emailed Twitter, saying, “I never notified Twitter that I was resigning, nor did I see or accept the separation agreement.”
Giving evidence at the hearing, which lasted five days in Dublin, Looney told the WRC that he loved his job before the ownership change and Musk took control of the platform.
Rooney said his initial reaction to the “Fork in the Road” email was one of disbelief and that he was initially hesitant to open it for fear it was spam or malware.
After receiving the email, he wrote to a colleague on the company’s internal messaging system: “For my own sake I need to resign. I am deeply troubled by what has been going on here recently.”
“Twitter 2.0 is not for you or me,” Rooney said in a message to another colleague.
Twitter argued, but was unsuccessful, that Rooney’s failure to click “yes” in response to the email indicated he had resigned voluntarily.
Lauren Wegman, the company’s senior director of human resources, told the hearing that the email was sent to all Irish employees other than the 140 who had already been made redundant after the acquisition. Of the 270 employees who received the email, 235 clicked “yes,” she said.
As for the remaining 35 employees, he said, “We have accepted their resignations.”
Wegman said the mood among employees at the time was mixed, with some excited about “Twitter 2.0” but others negatively opposed and wanted to quit.
In his findings, published in a 73-page decision document, WRC adjudicator Michael McNamee said 24 hours was not “reasonable notice.”
He said messages sent by Looney to colleagues expressing concerns about Musk’s acquisition were “nothing relevant to the questions as to the causes that led to the termination of Plaintiff’s employment.”
The total compensation award of €550,131 for unfair dismissal is an Irish record and is made up of €350,131 in Rooney’s lost wages between January 2023 and May 2024, as well as €200,000 in estimated lost future wages.
Mr Rooney’s lawyer, Barry Kenny, said he welcomed “a clear and unequivocal verdict that my client did not resign but was unfairly dismissed despite his excellent record of service and contribution to the company over many years”.
“Mr. Musk, or any major company in this country, should not be allowed to treat their employees in this way. This record-breaking award reflects the seriousness and gravity of this case,” he said.
When I sent an email to Twitter’s public relations department, I received the reply, “We’re busy right now, so please check back later.”