The Labour Court has cut the unfair dismissal award by 63% to a former executive of Elon Musk's X to €201,458.
This follows the court reducing the record Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) award of €550,131 to Gary Rooney made in August 2024 by €348,673 to €201,458.
At the WRC, as part of his award, Mr Rooney was awarded €200,000 under the heading of future losses, but on appeal by Twitter International UC - since renamed X Internet Unlimited Company- Labour Court chairwoman Louise O’Donnell reduced Mr Rooney’s compensation under the heading of future losses over two years to €32,041.
On behalf of the court, Ms O'Donnell reduced Mr Rooney's compensation for full losses to date from €350,131 to €169,417.
Ms O’Donnell did find that the company’s former Director of Source to Pay Mr Rooney was unfairly dismissed in December 2022 after he failed to respond to Elon Musk’s "Fork in the Road" email.
At the Labour Court, Mr Rooney put his total losses to date at €689,406 and was seeking that amount.
Mr Rooney’s salary at Twitter in 2022 was €344,703.
As part of a 37-page ruling after three days of evidence at the Labour Court, Ms O’Donnell found that taking into account the speed at which things happened, the lack of response to specific queries raised by Mr Rooney and his legal representatives, that Mr Rooney did not in any way contribute to his dismissal.
'Fork in the Road'
In the court findings, Ms O’Donnell found that Mr Rooney was dismissed because he did not respond to Elon Musk’s "Fork in the Road" email on 16 November 2022.
On November 16th 2022, Mr Rooney and the Twitter workforce received an email from Mr Musk who said: "to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing a grade."
Mr Musk said: "If you are sure that you want to be part of the new Twitter, please click yes on the link below."
After Mr Rooney - represented in the case by Padraig Lyons SC and Barry Kenny of Kenny Sullivan Solicitors in Bray - opted not to click "Yes" on the link, he received a further company email three days later on 19 November 2022 which stated that it is "to acknowledge your decision to resign and accept the voluntary separation offer".
Ms O’Donnell found that that the conduct of X - formerly Twitter - in setting an arbitrary deadline in responding to the "Fork in the Road" email, not providing sufficient information for employees to make an informed decision and deeming an employee to have resigned when no intention to resign was communicated by the employee, was not reasonable conduct and on that basis found that Mr Rooney was unfairly dismissed.
Ms O’Donnell found that X, in setting an arbitrary deadline for a response to the "Fork in the Road" email, did so in the full knowledge that employees were being asked to sign up to unknown terms and conditions of employment going forward, unknown changes to benefit packages or to sign up to an unknown settlement package the details of which would be determined by X.
At the hearing, asked if he believed he had tendered his resignation by not ticking the box, Mr Rooney said: "No. Absolutely not."
No basis to constitute a resignation
Referring to the email, Ms O’Donnell said that no contractual or legal basis for "X Internet" to presume that failure to tick a box within the designated time-frame could constitute a resignation was opened or argued before the court.
The three days of evidence at the Labour Court followed five days of evidence at the WRC commencing on 6 November 2023.
Mr Rooney secured a new role with an employer in the banking sector in September 2023 on total remuneration of €129,897 and told the Labour Court that he received a pay increase from August 2025 which brought his monthly salary to €11,267.
