Matt Shaver (@mattxshaver) is a Cleveland, Ohio based comedian who went viral on TikTok after creating a parody video on Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Musk, who was once glowingly received in social media posts and lauded for making electric vehicles desirable, mainstream commuting options, has faced increasing criticism over the years.
Recently, the billionaire enacted “mass layoffs” of Twitter staff and caused an uproar online once folks who use the platform caught wind of Musk’s musings to charge verified users of the site a monthly fee to keep their verified badge. Musk says that the measure is one of the more effective means of combating “bot accounts” which currently comprise nearly 21-29% of all users on the social media application.
Shaver’s jocular commentary on the situation blurred the lines between parody and reality, having TikTokers wondering if he really was employed by Twitter or not. However, considering his other social media posts and that he lists himself as a comedian, it’s safe to assume he is posting the video as a comedic bit.
“I’ve worked at Twitter for over five years,” he says. “I’m an engineer, and I was not fired on a phone call; I was not fired at an in-person meeting; I wasn’t even fired over text message; no, I was fired over email.”
Shaver then holds up a printout of an email supposedly sent to him from a Twitter employee named Hannah who works in human resources. The TikTok’s text overlay reads, “This is REAL” as Shaver displays the email.
“As you can see, she just tells me my email access is going away at 6 PM today and then attaches a meme of Elon saying, ‘time to leave the nest you’re fired.’” The Daily Dot reached out to the hannah@twitter.com email address shown in the video to verify its legitimacy but received an “address not found” message indicating the email was undeliverable. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be anyone named Hannah Hotzenberg who is currently employed by the social media platform.
Shaver continues to say, “So I got this and I replied, ‘this is a joke, right? Like this is a fun Elon thing he’s gonna tweet about later?’ and she was like ‘oh no you’re, you’re fired.’” Shaver also says he spoke to friends of his who were also fired from Twitter and confirmed they got similar emails, though the text in the memes was slightly different.
While there were a lot of folks who thought that it was evident Shaver made his post in jest, there were others who were not so sure.
“BRO HOW DOES SOMEONE GET FIRED LIKE THIS? This isn’t right…”
“Apparently there’s a WARN act in California that protects employees from this. Please contact a lawyer.”
“The funny part is I honestly don’t know if this is real or not.”
“Even if it’s a joke, it’s still a wise decision from Twitter u guys are overpaid, sweet dreams team Twitter.”
In the comments section of the post, Shaver penned: “I don’t know what I can really do at this point but I’m sure sharing this video with people will accomplish something.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Matt Shaver via Instagram direct message for further comment.
Update 3:00pm CT November 5: Matt Shaver elaborated on the situation in an Instagram direct message.
“I made the video as a satirical take on the entire Elon/Twitter situation,” he wrote. “It’s unbelievable how many people believed the obvious joke email, and then blindly shared the video or commented something hateful. If they would have finished the video, or even looked at my profile, they would’ve known it was a joke. So while I’m not surprised it went viral, I’m surprised that so many people believed it.”
