Failing to respond to email from Elon Musk leads to US$600,000 award for ex-employee

Failing to respond to email from Elon Musk leads to US$600,000 award for ex-employee | Insurance Business Australia

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Failing to respond to email from Elon Musk leads to US$600,000 award for ex-employee

Senior employee based in Ireland wins unfair dismissal case

Insurance News

By
Dexter Tilo

A former senior employee at Twitter’s European headquarters in Ireland has been awarded more than €550,000 for unfair dismissal following his failure to respond to an email from Elon Musk, according to reports.

Gary Rooney, who served as a director of a procurement role at Twitter International in Dublin, was dismissed shortly after Musk took over X, which was formerly known as Twitter.

But Ireland’s Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ruled in Rooney’s favour, setting a record for unfair dismissal awards in the country, The Guardian reported.

Shortly after the acquisition, Musk sent an email to employees outlining his vision for “Twitter 2.0,” which included long hours and high-intensity work.

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” Musk wrote in the email as quoted by The Guardian.

The email asked employees to confirm their commitment by clicking a link, with those who did not respond being offered three months’ severance pay.

Rooney was one of the employees who did not click “yes” on the link provided in the message. He then received an email three days later from Twitter acknowledging his “decision to resign” and confirming his acceptance of a voluntary separation offer.

He was told that he was considered to have resigned on November 18, 2022, with his access to the company’s systems deactivated.

Rooney contested this in an email to Twitter a week later, stating: “At no time have I indicated to Twitter that I am resigning my position, nor have I seen any separation agreement let alone accepted one.”

WRC’s ruling on ‘voluntary’ resignation

During a five-day hearing at the WRC in Dublin, Rooney testified that he initially believed Musk’s email was spam or malware and was afraid to open it.

Twitter argued that Rooney’s failure to respond to Musk’s email constituted voluntary resignation.

According to Lauren Wegman, Twitter’s senior director of human resources, the company accepted the resignations of 35 employees who did not click “yes” to Musk’s email. A total of 270 people received the message.

The WRC, however, rejected this claim, with WRC adjudicator Michael MacNamee ruling that the 24-hour notice period provided in Musk’s email was not “reasonable.”

MacNamee awarded Rooney €550,131, which covers lost remuneration from January 2023 to May 2024 of €350,131 and estimated lost future earnings of €200,000.