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A former employee of Twitter, now X, who was earlier sacked by owner Elon Musk for not replying to his email in which he appealed to the staff to remain 'extremely hardcore', has now been given a payout of £470,000 (approx. $603,818). 

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Gary Rooney, who was working as a senior executive at Twitter's Europe headquarters in Ireland, was at that time informed that the employee had resigned when he failed to respond to Musk's email after the latter had taken over the company.

Musk, who purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, after a few weeks sent an email to people informing them that 'Twitter 2.0' needs to succeed and employees should be 'extremely hardcore'.

Also Read: Elon Musk a ‘teenager on the bus with no headphones’, should face ‘arrest warrant’, says ex-Twitter chief

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"If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below," Musk wrote in an email and added that the staff who will fail to click on yes will receive severance pay of three months.

According to Ireland's Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Rooney did not click 'yes'.

Rooney was appointed as the director of 'source-to-pay' at the Dublin office of Twitter at the time and three days later he was sent another email from the company "to acknowledge your decision to resign and accept the voluntary separation offer".

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Here's why the employee did not click on 'yes'

Rooney was employed at Twitter for nine years before the company said that he should consider that he resigned on November 18, 2022, and added that his access to the Twitter system has been deactivated, as reported by The Guardian.

A week later, Rooney emailed Twitter claiming that "at no time have I indicated to Twitter that I am resigning my position, nor have I seen any separation agreement let alone accepted one."

Rooney added that he loved working at Twitter before Musk took over.

Watch: Elon Musk says will fight Zuckerberg “any place, any time, any rules”

He said that he feared opening the email, which was sent by Musk to the employees in which he had to click "yes", fearing that it was malware or spam.

In another message sent to two colleagues, Rooney expressed his reservations on Musk's plans for 'Twitter 2.0'.

WRC official Michael MacNamee, in the decision, said that the decision of Rooney not to click 'yes' in the email cannot be considered a resignation.

(With inputs from agencies)