8 ms·

Publicly disclosing an employee’s disability, mocking it, claiming they are faking it, and then saying it is the reason they were fired. Employment attorneys ar

Publicly disclosing an employee’s disability, mocking it, claiming they are faking it, and then saying it is the reason they were fired. Employment attorneys are going to tear Elon to pieces over this. I hope those holding shares of Tesla stock feel really good about supporting this behavior. Edit: I want to know which account flagged the original post and I want them to explain why they did. Hello. Is that you, Elon?

throwaway29303 4y ago
Publicly disclosing an employee’s disability, mocking it, claiming they are faking it, and then saying it is the reason they were fired. I'm having a hard time finding posts from Elon where he does that - care to help me? Thank you.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  The link of the HN post where we are discussing right now. "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. Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that."
  - gumby 4y ago
    People shouldn't be downvoting this because Karwebnetwork is providing the text of the tweet in question. They probably should have (and it's still editable as I type) marked it "here is the text of the tweet in question" because if you don't know that it does look like Karwebnetwork is the one making the offensive comment.
- matthews2 4y ago
  Probably the Tweet the OP is replying to. > 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.
- flounder3 4y ago
  At the moment, it’s the third tweet down on the Replies tab on his profile.
- groffee 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    Muscular dystrophy's a hell of a thing, and I hope you never get it.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Consider the nuance. Tesla the org does good work (lots of EVs sold, lots of good people doing good engineering, 40GWh/yr of utility scale battery manufacturing capacity). Its North America ops are now being run by Tom Zhu. Elon is incinerating his wealth, diminishing his own power it took him two decades to build (which is his choice). These can all be objectively good outcomes, although the process is…messy. We’re headed toward the ideal outcome of Tesla continuing to grow while Elon slow burns his way out. Yes, Elon should be more kind, but like a great white shark, put a cage between you and them and move on. This holds for most people who reach the level he has. You don’t become this wealthy by being a decent human (broadly speaking, there are always exceptions). https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3206179/who-teslas-tom-zhu-chinese-exec-praised-elon-musk-burning-3am-oil https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article... (no current TSLA exposure, I intend to donate to Halli in some fashion)
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  The lesson I've learned from his Twitter acquisition is that (1) he has vast influence over his companies, when and if he chooses to, and (2) he is sometimes willing to use that influence in ways that cause harm to his customers and the business (even to his own wealth), even in cases where his actions violate explicit contractual promises. And (3) if/when he chooses to do this, his business partners, C-level employees and fellow investors will facilitate his behavior rather than providing any counterweight or cautionary advice. I'm a current Tesla owner (2018 Model 3) and really like the car. But these are all reasons why I'm uncomfortable investing in another 5-7 years of Tesla ownership. Right now Musk has chosen to not destroy Tesla (or at least, not harm it much) but at any point he might decide to illegally void all warranties or triple the price of supercharging just for fun. Plus I intensely dislike the guy and want to encourage the growth of the EV industry away from a single, potentially unreliable supplier. And this is sad, because two years ago I would have gone to the mat to convince my friends and family to buy Teslas.
  - scythe 4y ago
    Elon owns Twitter privately. Tesla is publicly traded and falls under SEC regulations, fiduciary duty, etc. He can do with Twitter as he pleases; not so with Tesla. In fact, the SEC filed suit re: Tesla and forced Elon to step down as chairman.
lancesells 4y ago
Big, meaningful shareholders of stock personally request CEOs to fire people for bigger profits. I'm not sure they care one bit because someone is being an asshole. Edit: And I'm not suggesting this should be a normalized thing. Just that it's unfortunate how greed trumps any sort of regular decorum.
gumby 4y ago
> Employment attorneys are going to tear Elon to pieces over this. Not clear as the employee appears to live in Iceand, not USA, much less California.
- thefreeman 4y ago
  Are you suggesting that in Iceland it's legal to fire employees for having a disability?
  - gumby 4y ago
    I'm saying that as a US-based HN reader, like most HN readers, it's a big assumption to guess what the HR law might be in this case. Does Twitter even have an office in Iceland (a country with the population of Sunnyvale)? If not, whatever the law may be might be unenforceable. I can't even guess what the law in Iceland might be. On one hand, it seems generally a pretty reasonable place. On the other hand it's a small place and won't have the time, bandwidth or interest in passing as many laws as bigger places do. Are you from Iceland? I wonder if they have a kind of default rule that says "in this area, if we don't have our own law we adopt the one of X (say DK or EU)"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
moremetadata 4y ago
I think you'll find this chap will benefit from the increased global attention in a variety of quantifiable and unquantifable ways that attorneys will have a hard time quantifying because they dont have access to big data, unless the legal system and judicary plan to demonstrate publically its lack of intelligence, I'd be surprised if anything legally takes place. In the meantime Toferson is cleared to pursue the latest medical theory for muscular dystrophy. https://advances.massgeneral.org/neuro/journal.aspx?id=1699 https://advances.massgeneral.org/neuro/journal.aspx?id=1699
bigtex 4y ago
Unfortunately attempts at holding Elon accountability via the legal system have all failed so I don't place any hope of justice being served. I think the only hope is his ego collapses on itself.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  > Unfortunately attempts at holding Elon accountability via the legal system have all failed Well, except for one recent notable exception involving a blue bird.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
kinnth 4y ago
Didn't this all start by the employee in this case tweet in a public forum to his boss? So doesn't that mean the conversation is public by defintion?
- tag2103 4y ago
  Yep
- bena 4y ago
  He asked if he was still employed by the means left to him since he couldn't get into his work accounts. Nearly everything Elon disclosed didn't need to be disclosed publicly. Just because someone asks you a question publicly, it doesn't give you carte blanche to unload every single detail you know about the person asking the question.
- charles_f 4y ago
  That guy tweeted Elon Musk doesn't mean that Musk is allowed to reveal private medical information.
  - fvdessen 4y ago
    The guy has himself on a wheelchair as a profile picture and has his disease on the first page of his blog so i'm not sure what's being revealed
    - danaris 4y ago
      You can have a picture of yourself in a wheelchair and have any of a wide variety of permanent disabilities—or none! You could have just broken your leg. Or, and this may come as a shock, you can actually be fully healthy and abled and still sit in a wheelchair for a picture. There is not one single thing case in there that makes it OK for an employer to disclose medical information about you, however vague or detailed.
brandonagr2 4y ago
Elon said he "did no actual work", that's not the same as saying he was fired for having a disability.
- ncr100 4y ago
  It can be argued both ways and yeah he fired a person who is disabled well discussing their disability and disparaging there condition so a reasonable person could conclude that he's being discriminated against by Musk. It's not murder, but it's also wrong.
  - thepasswordis 4y ago
    I genuinely do not understand this. If you hired a guy to do landscaping, and then it turned out that the guy had a disability that prevented him from doing landscaping, are you obligated to keep paying that guy for doing nothing? Or howabout if a truck driver gets blinded somehow. Do you still have to keep employing him as a truck driver, and going through the motions as if he is still employed? That seems ridiculous. "Job at twitter" is not a resource to which people all have a right of some kind.
    - twixfel 4y ago
      I think the point is that the person in question was in fact doing work. You've taken Elon Musk's words at face value and as gospel, which does say something about you if not the gentleman who lost his job.
yellow08 4y ago
[dead]
frankreyes 4y ago
Reading quickly over the many tweets looks like it was the employee and not Elon who's disclosed the disability. The details on the disability were not given by Elon but the employee. It's literally the trademark on their Twitter profile. Ianal, but ... To the point: just saying that "some employee has a disability" does not mean they are disclosing the disability. On the contrary, in order for the company to accommodate, it's needs to be said.
- ncr100 4y ago
  I'm not sure that supercedes the standard which HIPPA protects American worker's health information from corporate or institutional mishandling. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/index.ht... Like if you or CEO you might not be able to confirm or debate and employee or (in the process of being fired) ex-employees health information. It just might be part of HIPAA that says you don't have the right to speak about that anymore. To be clear, I haven't found this restriction in the regulations of that link I just shared but that's what I suspect given what I've seen of employer restrictions from my work history. Update: No I think I'm coming around to your perspective because it looks like HIPA is only applicable to health insurance providers. Not employers. Unless of course the employer is a self-funded health insurance provider, I don't know the details of twitter's health plan. https://www.calltherightattorney.com/blog/2022/02/can-my-employer-share-my-medical-information/ https://www.calltherightattorney.com/blog/2022/02/can-my-emp... This link suggests that it might be an ADA violation. However Elon Musk could claim that he is revealing that the employee has a disability through Elon's reading of the employees Twitter feed which has public information about his muscular dystrophy. That's a way to weasel out of this ADA violation, potentially. Update 2: Ah but it looks like it's a civil rights violation: > releasing an employee’s medical information in retaliation to that attorney opposing unlawful discrimination or harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that will give rise to a very good claim for damages as well. It felt wrong, reading what Elon wrote, and it looks like, if this blog post is to be trusted, the law also agrees with that sentiment.
  - frankreyes 4y ago
nunez 4y ago
I hope the markets punish Tesla for the shitshow Elon has created over at Twitter. They won't, but I hope they do.
dang 4y ago
If you're referring to the flags on HN, users flagged the story and were correct to do so. There's nothing intellectually curious here—just the latest cult vs. anticult flamewar. I admit it's a particularly juicy episode, but (a) that's not what HN is for and (b) it destroys what it is for. We're trying for very much the opposite here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html More explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35060935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35060935 if anyone wants it.
- pxc 4y ago
  I didn't know this guy existed before I saw posts about this on HN, and I think he's impressive and interesting as a tech/design leader himself. I also had never seen that Tumblr post which has been linked here, giving an account of how the culture at Tesla allegedly involved a lot of processes for managing and working around Elon. I think that's interesting, too, for questions it raises about leadership and celebrity and funding in general. I admit that the conversation has not focused on those things too much. :-\ But I'm glad I saw the thread, at least.
  - pseudalopex 4y ago
    I agree. And how people think about disabilities is interesting. See the discussion about what is acceptable to disclose. And does the CEO of Twitter really think you have to type to tweet?
    - pxc 4y ago
      Yeah. I've been thinking about disability lately because a degenerative disease resulting in blindness runs in my family. (I'll find out for sure whether I have it, like my sister and my mom, after a genetic testing appointment I have next week.) A few weeks ago I also had a surgery that, for just a couple days, left me unable to sit up on my own or walk across the room, due to the pain. And then I spent last night visiting a relative who is (I think) dying. She's completely lucid but now immobile to the point that she can't sit all the way up, get out of bed on her own, or walk, and I don't think her mobility ever increases much again from here. (Incidentally, she is also legally blind due to the same genetic condition as I mentioned before.) I think my still-forming thoughts and feelings about all of that drew me to this story, and to Thorleifsson's persona. It sucks that he has the condition that he has, but at the same time, he doesn't seem like a very pitiable person to me. He seems dignified, capable, successful, and loved. Someone to be admired, or even envied. So it's really interesting to me, then, how some people see him as 'playing the pity card' when he describes his disability as it comes up in this discussion. Like I said, my recent thoughts about disability are still forming so I don't have some interesting conclusion that I'm proud of. But I think there's a lot to think about here, beyond the outrage and hero worship. Maybe all this hubbub will help push a thoughtful article or two about disability to the front page in the next few days. That would be cool.

throwaway29303 4y ago

Publicly disclosing an employee’s disability, mocking it, claiming they are faking it, and then saying it is the reason they were fired. I'm having a hard time finding posts from Elon where he does that - care to help me? Thank you.

Karawebnetwork 4y ago
The link of the HN post where we are discussing right now. "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. Can’t say I have a lot of respect for that."
- gumby 4y ago
  People shouldn't be downvoting this because Karwebnetwork is providing the text of the tweet in question. They probably should have (and it's still editable as I type) marked it "here is the text of the tweet in question" because if you don't know that it does look like Karwebnetwork is the one making the offensive comment.
matthews2 4y ago
Probably the Tweet the OP is replying to. > 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.
flounder3 4y ago
At the moment, it’s the third tweet down on the Replies tab on his profile.
groffee 4y ago
[flagged]
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  Muscular dystrophy's a hell of a thing, and I hope you never get it.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Consider the nuance. Tesla the org does good work (lots of EVs sold, lots of good people doing good engineering, 40GWh/yr of utility scale battery manufacturing capacity). Its North America ops are now being run by Tom Zhu. Elon is incinerating his wealth, diminishing his own power it took him two decades to build (which is his choice). These can all be objectively good outcomes, although the process is…messy. We’re headed toward the ideal outcome of Tesla continuing to grow while Elon slow burns his way out. Yes, Elon should be more kind, but like a great white shark, put a cage between you and them and move on. This holds for most people who reach the level he has. You don’t become this wealthy by being a decent human (broadly speaking, there are always exceptions). https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3206179/who-teslas-tom-zhu-chinese-exec-praised-elon-musk-burning-3am-oil https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article... (no current TSLA exposure, I intend to donate to Halli in some fashion)

matthewdgreen 4y ago
The lesson I've learned from his Twitter acquisition is that (1) he has vast influence over his companies, when and if he chooses to, and (2) he is sometimes willing to use that influence in ways that cause harm to his customers and the business (even to his own wealth), even in cases where his actions violate explicit contractual promises. And (3) if/when he chooses to do this, his business partners, C-level employees and fellow investors will facilitate his behavior rather than providing any counterweight or cautionary advice. I'm a current Tesla owner (2018 Model 3) and really like the car. But these are all reasons why I'm uncomfortable investing in another 5-7 years of Tesla ownership. Right now Musk has chosen to not destroy Tesla (or at least, not harm it much) but at any point he might decide to illegally void all warranties or triple the price of supercharging just for fun. Plus I intensely dislike the guy and want to encourage the growth of the EV industry away from a single, potentially unreliable supplier. And this is sad, because two years ago I would have gone to the mat to convince my friends and family to buy Teslas.
- scythe 4y ago
  Elon owns Twitter privately. Tesla is publicly traded and falls under SEC regulations, fiduciary duty, etc. He can do with Twitter as he pleases; not so with Tesla. In fact, the SEC filed suit re: Tesla and forced Elon to step down as chairman.

lancesells 4y ago

Big, meaningful shareholders of stock personally request CEOs to fire people for bigger profits. I'm not sure they care one bit because someone is being an asshole. Edit: And I'm not suggesting this should be a normalized thing. Just that it's unfortunate how greed trumps any sort of regular decorum.

gumby 4y ago

> Employment attorneys are going to tear Elon to pieces over this. Not clear as the employee appears to live in Iceand, not USA, much less California.

thefreeman 4y ago
Are you suggesting that in Iceland it's legal to fire employees for having a disability?
- gumby 4y ago
  I'm saying that as a US-based HN reader, like most HN readers, it's a big assumption to guess what the HR law might be in this case. Does Twitter even have an office in Iceland (a country with the population of Sunnyvale)? If not, whatever the law may be might be unenforceable. I can't even guess what the law in Iceland might be. On one hand, it seems generally a pretty reasonable place. On the other hand it's a small place and won't have the time, bandwidth or interest in passing as many laws as bigger places do. Are you from Iceland? I wonder if they have a kind of default rule that says "in this area, if we don't have our own law we adopt the one of X (say DK or EU)"

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

moremetadata 4y ago

I think you'll find this chap will benefit from the increased global attention in a variety of quantifiable and unquantifable ways that attorneys will have a hard time quantifying because they dont have access to big data, unless the legal system and judicary plan to demonstrate publically its lack of intelligence, I'd be surprised if anything legally takes place. In the meantime Toferson is cleared to pursue the latest medical theory for muscular dystrophy. https://advances.massgeneral.org/neuro/journal.aspx?id=1699 https://advances.massgeneral.org/neuro/journal.aspx?id=1699

bigtex 4y ago

Unfortunately attempts at holding Elon accountability via the legal system have all failed so I don't place any hope of justice being served. I think the only hope is his ego collapses on itself.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
> Unfortunately attempts at holding Elon accountability via the legal system have all failed Well, except for one recent notable exception involving a blue bird.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

kinnth 4y ago

Didn't this all start by the employee in this case tweet in a public forum to his boss? So doesn't that mean the conversation is public by defintion?

tag2103 4y ago
Yep
bena 4y ago
He asked if he was still employed by the means left to him since he couldn't get into his work accounts. Nearly everything Elon disclosed didn't need to be disclosed publicly. Just because someone asks you a question publicly, it doesn't give you carte blanche to unload every single detail you know about the person asking the question.
charles_f 4y ago
That guy tweeted Elon Musk doesn't mean that Musk is allowed to reveal private medical information.
- fvdessen 4y ago
  The guy has himself on a wheelchair as a profile picture and has his disease on the first page of his blog so i'm not sure what's being revealed
  - danaris 4y ago
    You can have a picture of yourself in a wheelchair and have any of a wide variety of permanent disabilities—or none! You could have just broken your leg. Or, and this may come as a shock, you can actually be fully healthy and abled and still sit in a wheelchair for a picture. There is not one single thing case in there that makes it OK for an employer to disclose medical information about you, however vague or detailed.

brandonagr2 4y ago

Elon said he "did no actual work", that's not the same as saying he was fired for having a disability.

ncr100 4y ago
It can be argued both ways and yeah he fired a person who is disabled well discussing their disability and disparaging there condition so a reasonable person could conclude that he's being discriminated against by Musk. It's not murder, but it's also wrong.
- thepasswordis 4y ago
  I genuinely do not understand this. If you hired a guy to do landscaping, and then it turned out that the guy had a disability that prevented him from doing landscaping, are you obligated to keep paying that guy for doing nothing? Or howabout if a truck driver gets blinded somehow. Do you still have to keep employing him as a truck driver, and going through the motions as if he is still employed? That seems ridiculous. "Job at twitter" is not a resource to which people all have a right of some kind.
  - twixfel 4y ago
    I think the point is that the person in question was in fact doing work. You've taken Elon Musk's words at face value and as gospel, which does say something about you if not the gentleman who lost his job.

yellow08 4y ago

[dead]

frankreyes 4y ago

Reading quickly over the many tweets looks like it was the employee and not Elon who's disclosed the disability. The details on the disability were not given by Elon but the employee. It's literally the trademark on their Twitter profile. Ianal, but ... To the point: just saying that "some employee has a disability" does not mean they are disclosing the disability. On the contrary, in order for the company to accommodate, it's needs to be said.

ncr100 4y ago
I'm not sure that supercedes the standard which HIPPA protects American worker's health information from corporate or institutional mishandling. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/index.ht... Like if you or CEO you might not be able to confirm or debate and employee or (in the process of being fired) ex-employees health information. It just might be part of HIPAA that says you don't have the right to speak about that anymore. To be clear, I haven't found this restriction in the regulations of that link I just shared but that's what I suspect given what I've seen of employer restrictions from my work history. Update: No I think I'm coming around to your perspective because it looks like HIPA is only applicable to health insurance providers. Not employers. Unless of course the employer is a self-funded health insurance provider, I don't know the details of twitter's health plan. https://www.calltherightattorney.com/blog/2022/02/can-my-employer-share-my-medical-information/ https://www.calltherightattorney.com/blog/2022/02/can-my-emp... This link suggests that it might be an ADA violation. However Elon Musk could claim that he is revealing that the employee has a disability through Elon's reading of the employees Twitter feed which has public information about his muscular dystrophy. That's a way to weasel out of this ADA violation, potentially. Update 2: Ah but it looks like it's a civil rights violation: > releasing an employee’s medical information in retaliation to that attorney opposing unlawful discrimination or harassment under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that will give rise to a very good claim for damages as well. It felt wrong, reading what Elon wrote, and it looks like, if this blog post is to be trusted, the law also agrees with that sentiment.
- frankreyes 4y ago

nunez 4y ago

I hope the markets punish Tesla for the shitshow Elon has created over at Twitter. They won't, but I hope they do.

dang 4y ago

If you're referring to the flags on HN, users flagged the story and were correct to do so. There's nothing intellectually curious here—just the latest cult vs. anticult flamewar. I admit it's a particularly juicy episode, but (a) that's not what HN is for and (b) it destroys what it is for. We're trying for very much the opposite here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html More explanation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35060935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35060935 if anyone wants it.

pxc 4y ago
I didn't know this guy existed before I saw posts about this on HN, and I think he's impressive and interesting as a tech/design leader himself. I also had never seen that Tumblr post which has been linked here, giving an account of how the culture at Tesla allegedly involved a lot of processes for managing and working around Elon. I think that's interesting, too, for questions it raises about leadership and celebrity and funding in general. I admit that the conversation has not focused on those things too much. :-\ But I'm glad I saw the thread, at least.
- pseudalopex 4y ago
  I agree. And how people think about disabilities is interesting. See the discussion about what is acceptable to disclose. And does the CEO of Twitter really think you have to type to tweet?
  - pxc 4y ago
    Yeah. I've been thinking about disability lately because a degenerative disease resulting in blindness runs in my family. (I'll find out for sure whether I have it, like my sister and my mom, after a genetic testing appointment I have next week.) A few weeks ago I also had a surgery that, for just a couple days, left me unable to sit up on my own or walk across the room, due to the pain. And then I spent last night visiting a relative who is (I think) dying. She's completely lucid but now immobile to the point that she can't sit all the way up, get out of bed on her own, or walk, and I don't think her mobility ever increases much again from here. (Incidentally, she is also legally blind due to the same genetic condition as I mentioned before.) I think my still-forming thoughts and feelings about all of that drew me to this story, and to Thorleifsson's persona. It sucks that he has the condition that he has, but at the same time, he doesn't seem like a very pitiable person to me. He seems dignified, capable, successful, and loved. Someone to be admired, or even envied. So it's really interesting to me, then, how some people see him as 'playing the pity card' when he describes his disability as it comes up in this discussion. Like I said, my recent thoughts about disability are still forming so I don't have some interesting conclusion that I'm proud of. But I think there's a lot to think about here, beyond the outrage and hero worship. Maybe all this hubbub will help push a thoughtful article or two about disability to the front page in the next few days. That would be cool.