After Elon Musk takeover, pranksters pretend to be laid-off Twitter employees

Several images and videos went viral on Friday in which two men carrying boxes are seen standing near the entrance of Twitter's San Francisco building, claiming to have been laid off by Musk.

San Francisco: Elon Musk became Twitter Inc’s new owner on Thursday and since then news regarding the lay-offs of the micro-blogging old employees have been doing the rounds on the internet.

A couple of pranksters posing as laid-off Twitter employees tricked media outlets: ‘Rahul Ligma’ is the name that one of the pranksters used. #Twitter #ELONMUSK #RahulLigma

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— Need To Know (@NeedToKnow__NTK) October 29, 2022

Amid Musk Twitter takeover, some pranksters even tried to hog the limelight. As per New York Post, a pair of pranksters posing as laid-off Twitter employees tricked multiple media outlets as the public anxiously awaited news on whether Tesla CEO had begun axing staffers.

Several images and videos went viral on Friday in which two men carrying boxes are seen standing near the entrance of Twitter’s San Francisco building, claiming to have been laid off by Musk.

Elon Musk has come out with a witty reaction to the whole prankster episode by tweeting that “Ligma Johnson had it coming.” Musk’s tweet was in reference to one of the pranksters who said his name was “Rahul Ligma” — a reference to a popular internet meme — and held a copy of Michelle Obama’s book “Becoming” aloft while speaking to reporters. The other said his name was “Daniel Johnson.” Several media members and media outlets posted about Twitter employees leaving the company’s HQ, boxes of personal belongings in hand. One of the more prominent posts came from CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa, who posted that an “entire team of data engineers” had been let go, Mashable reported.

Paul Lee, a product manager at Twitter, was among those who called out the popular media organisation over its report.

Quite ironic that a major news outlet failed to do basic diligence and fell for a crisis actor prank, resulting in the spread of misinfo, on the first day of new ownership. All you had to do was ask to see a badge or look for bird-themed stuff in the boxes. Also we don’t use Zoom https://t.co/QtIrBjOH3H

— Paul Lee (@BeeBimBop) October 28, 2022

“Quite ironic that a major news outlet failed to do basic diligence and fell for a crisis actor prank, resulting in the spread of misinfo, on the first day of new ownership,” Lee tweeted. “All you had to do was ask to see a badge or look for bird-themed stuff in the boxes. Also, we don’t use Zoom.” Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Musk walked the halls of the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, carrying the bowl of a sink which garnered massive views over the internet. Musk tweeted a video of himself carrying a kitchen sink and wrote, “let that sink in! “Furthermore, Elon Musk also changed his Twitter profile to read “Chief Twit” shortly after he hinted at going forward with the Twitter acquisition deal. In July, Musk who had long been showing his interest to buy Twitter terminated the deal, claiming that Twitter violated their mutual purchase agreement by misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform. After Musk put out the deal termination announcement, the market saw a sharp decline.

Later, Twitter sued Musk accusing him of using bots as a pretext to exit a deal.