Elon Musk sent an email threatening Twitter staff. Now X must pay 550,000 euros to an employee who did not resign

Gary Rooney had been working at Twitter for almost ten years as a source-to-pay manager, a position derived from the purchasing department at Twitter’s Irish branch when Elon Musk bought the social network for $44 billion. Now, X must compensate Rooney with 550,131 euros for unfair dismissal.

Elon Musk and his dismissal by omissionJust a few weeks later, Elon Musk sent an email to Twitter’s entire staff demanding greater commitment. “Going forward, to build a revolutionary Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we’re going to have to be extremely tough. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade,” the entrepreneur wrote.

If you were willing to accept Musk’s new terms, you simply had to accept them by clicking a button included in the email that read: “If you are sure you want to be part of the new Twitter, click yes on the link below.” Those who did not respond affirmatively to that email would receive three months’ severance pay. Rooney did not click that button, but he did not tell the company of his decision to resign either.

Twitter wanted to confirm it, but he didn’t.Three days after receiving Elon Musk’s brief email (and not responding to his email in any way), the company sent him a second email to “acknowledge his decision to resign and accept the voluntary separation offer.” In this way, Twitter considered that it had decided to terminate his contract because it considered that he had resigned by not having responded to the email and his access permissions to Twitter systems would be revoked.

A week later, Gary Rooney emailed Twitter’s HR department to say that “at no point have I indicated to Twitter that I am resigning from my position, nor have I seen any separation agreement, much less accepted one.”

A court ruled that he did not resign. The Irish Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Workplace Relations Commission) accepted Gary Rooney’s claim of unfair dismissal, arguing that he did not press that button, but neither did he expressly state his intention to resign from his post.

At the five-day hearing, Twitter (now X) unsuccessfully argued that Rooney’s failure to click “yes” in response to the email indicated that he had resigned voluntarily. 235 of the 270 Irish employees who received it clicked “yes.” For the remaining 35 employees: “We accept their resignations,” acknowledged Lauren Wegman, senior director of human resources at X.

According to sources of The GuardianJudge Michael MacNamee of the Commission tribunal stated in his conclusions that “24 hours was not reasonable notice” and, therefore, ordered X to pay compensation of €550,131, of which €350,131 related to unpaid wages between January 2023 and May 2024, and €200,000 as compensation for the estimated loss of wages that Rooney could have earned during that period.

Slack is private, but it belongs to the company. During the process, X used as evidence that the employee had accepted his resignation a series of private messages Rooney had sent on Slack to one of his colleagues, saying: “I need to step away for my own good. I am deeply concerned about what is happening here these days.” In a message to another colleague, the employee wrote: “Twitter 2.0 will not be for you or me.”

Even if the Commission hearing the case did not see Rooney’s intention to resign in these messages, it does reveal that corporate messaging communications are not private. Employers have the right to monitor and retain Slack messages in order to ensure that company policies are followed and to prevent workplace harassment. However, as we have seen in this case against X, the company has not hesitated to use them as evidence in a trial.

It is not a process applicable in Spain. According to Spanish law, the procedure used by Elon Musk for his employees to submit their voluntary resignations would not comply with the terms contemplated in article 49 of the Workers’ Statute which establishes that “there must be advance notice as specified in collective agreements or local custom.”

The usual thing is to do it in writing, establishing the start and end date of that notice period and both the employee and the employer are obliged to sign the voluntary resignation. In this way, there is no room for doubt when it comes to distinguishing between voluntary resignation and unfair dismissal.

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Image | Wikimedia Commons (UK Government)