{"id":137271,"date":"2022-11-23T18:19:02","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T12:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/?p=137271"},"modified":"2022-11-23T19:03:47","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T13:33:47","slug":"aaj-tak-india-tv-fall-for-elon-musk-satire-tweet-rehired-fired-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/aaj-tak-india-tv-fall-for-elon-musk-satire-tweet-rehired-fired-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaj Tak, India TV, Jagran fell for Elon Musk&#8217;s joke; Twitter didn&#8217;t hire back two fired employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right after Elon Musk took over the reins of microblogging site Twitter, the organization <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/11\/03\/technology\/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">carried out large-scale lay-offs<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. While many social media users made memes poking fun at the development, others sharply criticized the move.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On November 15, Musk shared a picture of himself with two people, writing, &#8220;Welcoming back Ligma and Johnson!&#8221; In the tweet thread that followed, he added that it was important to admit when he was wrong, and that firing them was his biggest mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Welcoming back Ligma &amp; Johnson! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LEhXV95Njj\">pic.twitter.com\/LEhXV95Njj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1592618665933156352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 15, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on this tweet, India Today Group&#8217;s Hindi channel Aaj Tak shared the post on its social media channels, claiming that Elon Musk admitted that firing the employees was his biggest mistake. Aaj Tak also amplified this on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/tQmxk\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/27682782579\/posts\/10163054460617580\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. However, the channel later deleted the tweet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-137273\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-4b5aefce31.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1074\" height=\"1442\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-4b5aefce31.jpg 1074w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-4b5aefce31-223x300.jpg 223w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-4b5aefce31-763x1024.jpg 763w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-4b5aefce31-768x1031.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1074px) 100vw, 1074px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jagran also published an article based on Elon Musk&#8217;s tweet. The daily claimed that he reinstated two employees after firing them earlier, and accepted his mistake. (<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/YIrFd\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Archived link<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-137274\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-427766f08d.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1090\" height=\"1394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-427766f08d.jpg 1090w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-427766f08d-235x300.jpg 235w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-427766f08d-801x1024.jpg 801w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/ezgif-1-427766f08d-768x982.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1090px) 100vw, 1090px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Similarly, outlets like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/XdSGP\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">India TV<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/3MzPl\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">TV9 Bharatvarsh<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/9iBXa\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One India<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> also promoted the same claim in their articles.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-137271 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-full'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/aaj-tak-india-tv-fall-for-elon-musk-satire-tweet-rehired-fired-employees\/z3-5\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1454\" height=\"1512\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z3.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z3.jpg 1454w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z3-288x300.jpg 288w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z3-985x1024.jpg 985w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z3-768x799.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1454px) 100vw, 1454px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/aaj-tak-india-tv-fall-for-elon-musk-satire-tweet-rehired-fired-employees\/z2-7\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1296\" height=\"1440\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z2.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z2.jpg 1296w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z2-270x300.jpg 270w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z2-922x1024.jpg 922w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z2-768x853.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1296px) 100vw, 1296px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/aaj-tak-india-tv-fall-for-elon-musk-satire-tweet-rehired-fired-employees\/z1-6\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1360\" height=\"1472\" src=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z1.jpg\" class=\"attachment-full size-full\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z1.jpg 1360w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z1-277x300.jpg 277w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z1-946x1024.jpg 946w, https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/z1-768x831.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1360px) 100vw, 1360px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<h4><b>Fact-check<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alt News noticed that Elon Musk had mentioned the names \u2018Ligma\u2019 and \u2018Johnson\u2019 in his tweet. When we performed a keyword search using related terms, we came across <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/news\/buzz\/elon-musk-welcomes-ligma-and-johnson-admits-to-mistake-after-firing-them-from-twitter-6393607.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">several news reports<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in which the two men posing with Musk in the picture have been identified as prankster duo Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson. It is worth noting that &#8216;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/e\/pop-culture\/ligma\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ligma<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8216; is not a surname, but an internet slang.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/28\/business\/dealbook\/elon-musk-twitter-employee-payouts.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">New York Times report<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Twitter fired four top executives soon after Elon Musk took over the social media platform on October 27. This included Twitter CEO Parag Aggarwal, CFO Ned Segal, and Head of Legal Policy Vijaya Gadde among others.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taking a jab at the Twitter lay-offs, both these pranksters stood in front of the company\u2019s headquarters with boxes on October 28. The stunt found coverage on a number of reputed media outlets like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2022\/10\/28\/musk-first-day-owning-twitter-leads-to-havoc-and-possible-hoax-.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CNBC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-10-28\/musk-starts-cutting-jobs-at-twitter-staff-leave-with-boxes\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bloomberg<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which mistook them for actual Twitter employees who had been fired. However, the outlets later rectified the error in their reports. American technology news site <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/10\/28\/23428775\/twitter-fake-employee-layoff-rahul-ligma-elon-musk\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> also clarified that the two were not, in fact, employed by Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CNBC journalist Dierdre Bosa, too, interviewed both the pranksters assuming they were real Twitter employees, and claimed that Twitter&#8217;s data engineers had been fired. She later issued a clarification and apology.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">About Friday at Twitter HQ &#8211; I didn\u2019t do enough to confirm and I regret the mistake <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BGKEr8Osto\">pic.twitter.com\/BGKEr8Osto<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dee_bosa\/status\/1587158734689767425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 31, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To sum it up, Hindi news outlets including Aaj Tak, India TV, TV9 Bharatvarsh and One India mistakenly promoted a stunt by two men claiming to be Twitter employees who had been fired as real. The two were actually pranksters, and Elon Musk posted the tweet in question as a joke.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Right after Elon Musk took over the reins of microblogging site Twitter, the organization carried out large-scale lay-offs. While many social media users made memes poking fun at the development, others sharply criticized the move.\u00a0 On November 15, Musk shared a picture of himself with two people, writing, &#8220;Welcoming back Ligma and Johnson!&#8221; In the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":137419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[282],"tags":[693],"an_content_type":[739,742],"coauthors":[701],"class_list":["post-137271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-analysis","tag-featured","fact_checks_claim_type-viral-photos","an_content_type-fact-check","an_content_type-media-analysis"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2022\/11\/musksack.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137271"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137422,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137271\/revisions\/137422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137271"},{"taxonomy":"an_content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/an_content_type?post=137271"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altnews.in\/english-clone-2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=137271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}