Aaj Tak mistakes Elon Musk's joke about re-hiring fired employees for real
Aaj Tak, the Hindi news channel, used a screenshot of the tweet and reported that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has accepted his mistake and admitted that layoffs at Twitter were his biggest mistake.
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 18 Nov 2022 10:19 AM GMT
Hyderabad: After Elon Musk took over Twitter, the company laid off 50% of its employees worldwide. Several Twitter employees who criticised Elon Musk on Twitter or on the internal Slack messaging system were also fired.
On 16 November, Musk shared a photo welcoming back Ligma and Johnson. He wrote, "Important to admit when I'm wrong & firing them was truly one of my biggest mistakes."
Aaj Tak, the Hindi news channel, used a screenshot of the tweet and reported that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has accepted his mistake and admitted that layoffs at Twitter were his biggest mistake. The voice-over in the video claims, "After the large-scale layoff, Elon is realising his mistake. He is now calling back fired employees and has shared an image with two who have returned."
A Twitter user shared the Aaj Tak video and made the same claim. Click here to see the post.
In this article, we are fact-checking whether the two people in the photo with Elon Musk were Twitter employees and have been re-hired.
Fact Check
NewsMeter ran a keyword search about Ligma and Johnson which led us to an article by Livemint. It said that after Elon Musk took over Twitter in October, Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson were photographed leaving Twitter's San Francisco office carrying one box each of their belongings. The duo had tricked multiple media outlets by posing as Twitter employees fired in the mass layoff.
We also found a video of Ligma and Johnson speaking to reporters outside the Twitter office. It was published by AFP News Agency on 29 October 2022. The report said the two people who claimed to be employees laid off by Twitter turned out to be pranksters.
After mass resignation at Twitter following an ultimatum that staffers stay with the company "working long hours at high intensity" or quit, Musk, on 18 November, had tweeted that Ligma and Johnson are only his hope. It was obviously meant as a joke.
It is evident that Ligma and Johnson were not Twitter employees, and Musk's tweet about re-hiring the duo was meant as a joke. Hence, the Aaj Tak report is misleading.
