Gary Rooney, a former senior executive at Twitter’s Dublin office, has been awarded €550,000 (approximately Rs 5 Crore) in compensation after being wrongly dismissed for not responding to an email from Elon Musk. Musk, who took over Twitter in October 2022 and rebranded it as X, had sent an email to employees a few weeks later demanding hard work or face termination. The email instructed staff to click ‘yes’ to confirm their support, but those who wished to not follow his order were offered three months’ severance pay. Rooney, who did not click ‘yes,’ was mistakenly considered to have resigned. However, Ireland’s Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) argued that Rooney’s failure to respond couldn’t be counted as resignation and rejected Twitter’s claim.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Rooney’s lawyer Barry Kenny said, “It is not OK for Mr Musk, or indeed any large company to treat employees in such a manner in this country or jurisdiction. The record award reflects the seriousness and the gravity of the case.”
As per the portal, WRC alleged that the emails had been sent “at a time of rapid change in Twitter and in the context of inconsistent, contradictory and confusing communications from the Respondent in connection with the takeover of the Company by Mr Musk.”
RTE reports suggest that Elon Musk’s organisation failed to provide evidence during the trial. The accuser argued that his job was terminated simply because he didn’t click ‘yes’ in response to Musk’s email and claimed that after his dismissal, Twitter International Unlimited Company stopped communicating with him or his lawyer. On the other hand, Twitter insisted that Rooney chose not to respond on Musk’s email, which clearly meant he was resigning from his position. Michael MacNamee, an official at the WRC further stated that Rooney was ready to work but his access was blocked.
The officer added that Gary Rooney’s termination was unfair because there were no solid reasons to end his termination. MacNamee concluded that giving employees only 24 hours to respond to the email was not enough time to make such decision, even if HR support was available. Despite all the argument, Twitter remained adamant on their stance that Rooney was responsible for his loss because he didn’t click ‘yes’ in response to Musk’s email.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t the first case. There have been multiple lawsuits against Elon Musk claiming that many employees did not receive the severance which was initially promised.
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