A former Twitter employee (now X) has successfully sued an Irish employment court against his dismissal – and has now been awarded a record compensation of 550,131 euros.
According to the Guardian, Gary Rooney worked as director of purchasing at Twitter International’s Dublin office. Just a few weeks after taking over the platform, the new owner Elon Musk sent an email to all employees describing his vision for the company.
Pledge of allegiance with a mouse click
In order to “create a groundbreaking Twitter 2.0,” Musk said he expected employees to work extremely hard and long hours and deliver exceptional performance. Rooney never clicked on the link that asked employees to confirm that they supported Musk’s vision. Three days later, he received an email from the company informing him that he had voluntarily terminated his contract.
Rooney explained that he did not respond to the email immediately because he was afraid it was spam. He had never seen or signed a separation agreement.
In a 73-page decision document, WRC referee Michael MacNamee declared that 24 hours was not a “reasonable period of notice”. Barry Kenny, Rooney’s lawyer, welcomed “the clear and unambiguous finding” that his client had not resigned but had been unfairly dismissed.
