Elon Musk's master class in what not to do

To call Elon Musk's management style "controversial" is an understatement. Nowhere was that on better display than earlier this week, in which he openly discussed an HR matter on Twitter. In the process, he denigrated the employee, disclosed the employee's disability status, accused him of lying about that disability status, and accused him of not working. Iceland Review provides a full breakdown of how it all went down. Let's take a look at Musk's leadership and management mistakes in this situation and how to avoid them:

Musk's first mistakes actually took place shortly after taking over the company. His bull-in-a-china-shop approach to so-called "sweeping reforms" left entire teams within Twitter dissolved via extensive layoffs. This included teams tasked with handling things like site reliability and accessibility. Current and former employees describe Twitter as "chaos". As a former founder of a tech startup, a C-Level at a tech company with over 500 employees and perhaps most importantly, a husband to a Senior Director of Global HR, I can tell you with confidence that doing HR at Twitter must be like living in Hell. In fact, when surveyed, shortly after Musk's takeover "...almost?59%?[of HR professionals] said they would have already quit or would at least be furiously sending their resumés out to other employers." With an HR department in apparent shambles, Halli discovered that the "...head of HR is not able to confirm if I am an employee or not." Halli also stated that Musk had not responded to his emails. This is where the fun begins.

Musk's blunders out in the open

Generally, it is a bad idea for either party to discuss HR related concerns over social media. Many aspects of employment are far too private to be discussed in front of other people, let alone millions of people. Given the particular circumstances, Halli's initial Tweet towards Musk is understandable, however neither party should have continued the conversation out in the open. Both parties should have made an attempt to switch the conversation to email or direct messages. Halli's failure to switch to DMs was poor taste. Musk's failure to do so was legally risky and showed poor management.

Musk's response of "what work have you been doing" should have been entirely different and more along the lines of "Shoot me a DM or email referencing this Tweet and I'll have someone in HR clear this issue up for you." Upon receiving the DM, Musk simply should have shuffled off the issue to HR while also telling the HR folks that the employee is clearly frustrated, has good reason to be, and that they should clear up the issue with haste.

It gets worse from there

After Alex Cohen tweeted that he found the exchange humorous, Musk issued forth a number of additional tweets in which he:

1. Claimed Halli "did no actual work"
2. Claimed Halli had lied about having a disability
3. Claimed Halli confronted Musk in public so he (Halli) "could get a big pay out"
4. Agreed with numerous people who tweeted out negative comments about Halli

As of today, these negative tweets Musk made about Halli have been seen hundreds-of-millions of times. They have been "favorited" by Musk supporters well over a hundred thousand times. Ethical concerns aside, this kind of behavior can only exacerbate the chaos of handling HR at Twitter.

Wise HR professionals know that you should never speak negatively about a former employee, lest you risk a defamation suit. In fact, it is frequent practice among HR pros to merely acknowledge a past employee's title and dates of service to the company.

Musk's mentioning of Halli's disability status is likely a violation of HIPAA as well. Employees have the right to keep their health information private and, according to Justia, "An employer that discloses private facts or lies about an employee may be held accountable in a civil action for invasion of privacy or?defamation." Openly disclosing Halli's disability - and especially doing so in a denigrating way - is also likely a violation of the ADA.

Don't be like Elon

Many people who dislike Elon Musk can use this as another reason to dislike him. Or, we can use this event as a learning opportunity at our own company. Here are the things you can learn from this:

1. Never engage in HR-related discussions with an employee out in the open, even if the employee initiated the conversation. Always take the conversation to private channels like direct messages or emails. Heck, telephones are still a thing, too!
2. Never speak negatively about a current or former employee. There should be no exception to this rule. Even if a former employee is making false accusations about you or your company, let your legal team handle that.
3. Never disclose an employee's medical issues or disabilities, ever, to anyone. Some employees are open about their disability status, and that's fine. The decision to disclose is theirs alone.

For more information about your requirements regarding disabled employees in the workplace, spend some time reading through the Disability Resources shared by the US Department of Labor.