Getty Image
It didn’t take long for posers to troll the media after Elon Musk officially bought Twitter.
On Friday morning, Musk fired Twitter’s CEO, CFO, and the head of legal policy immediately after taking over the site.
Elon Musk also fired several executives at Twitter including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, legal head, Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel, Sean Edgett. pic.twitter.com/vLuzXbNF1p
— SAY CHEESE! 👄🧀 (@SaycheeseDGTL) October 28, 2022
The Washington Post revealed that Musk plans to lay off 75 percent of the workforce on Twitter.
Via Washington Post
Twitter’s workforce is likely to be hit with massive cuts in the coming months, no matter who owns the company, interviews, and documents obtained by The Washington Post show, a change likely to have major impact on its ability to control harmful content and prevent data security crises.
3:44
Elon Musk told prospective investors in his deal to buy the company that he planned to get rid of nearly 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 workers, whittling the company down to a skeleton staff of just over 2,000.
Reporters waited around outside Twitter’s HQ hoping to interview fired Twitter employees and ran into two men holding boxes.
They are visibly shaken. Daniel tells us he owns a Tesla and doesn’t know how he’s going to make payments.
— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) October 28, 2022
People quickly figured out the two guys were bogus after one of them revealed his name was “Rahul Ligma.”
You got conned.
Name is “Rahul LIGMA”C’mon man pic.twitter.com/EdcuIk6jCP
— Dr. Randy J. Marsh ➐ (@WealthyCFO) October 28, 2022
The Verge confirmed that Ligma and the other man did not work for Twitter and were just trolling the media.
Via The Verge
In videos circulating on Twitter Friday morning, two men carrying boxes are seen standing near the entrance to Twitter’s San Francisco building, claiming to have been laid off by Elon Musk, who officially took over the company Thursday evening.
There are plenty of problems with what these two men say to reporters. The most glaring is that one man identifies himself as a software engineer named “Rahul Ligma.” The Verge has confirmed that name does not exist in Twitter’s Slack or email system. There is also no evidence that the employee exists on LinkedIn.
“Ligma” is, of course, also an internet hoax designed to elicit the response “lick my balls” from people who are in on the joke. That didn’t stop multiple outlets, including CNBC and Bloomberg, from running headlines Friday saying that laid-off Twitter employees were leaving the building carrying boxes.