AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes has faced severe trolling online for attending a management meeting while getting a massage in the conference room. Fernandes posted a photo of himself sitting shirtless and wrote that he loves the work culture that allows him to have a massage and a management meeting all at the same time.
The post went viral on LinkedIn and Twitter within no time as it has garnered numerous likes, comments and reposts so far on both these platforms.
"Was a stressful week and Veranita Yosephine suggested a massage. Got to lover Indonesia and AirAsia culture that I can have a massage and do a management meeting. We are making big progress and I have now finalised Capital A structure. Exciting days ahead. Proud of what we have built and never have lost sight of the finish," the LinkedIn post read.
Fernandes' musings about getting a massage while attending a management meeting did not go well with LinkedIn users. He was flayed on LinkedIn for being "inappropriate" and "gross". "A grown man, who is the chief executive of a publicly listed company, conducts a management meeting with his shirt off as he gets a massage. Remove “who is the chief executive of a publicly listed company” and it is still inappropriate," a user stated under Fernandes' post.
"Work at AirAsia, where meetings are as gross as our passenger experience. You have managed to capture everything from inappropriate entitlement to exemplary C suite tone deafness in a single image. Bravo!" another user said under the post.
"Tony when you said Air Asia had an open culture I didn't expect it to be THIS open... (sic)," a user remarked in jest. "Wah kya life hai....if everyone in your company start doing this during review meeting...then?" a user asked out of anger.
The post also managed to garner quite the traction on X formerly known as Twitter. Users on X mostly had sarcastic takes and some angry comments to share on the post. "LinkedIn should seriously think about restricting access (sic)," a user wrote. "What a low! AirAsia CEO takes meetings topless oops shirtless! What more? (sic)," a former journalist wrote.
Here are some Twitter reactions to AirAsia CEO's LinkedIn post
In January last year, AirAsia Group Berhad had announced a name change for the group holding company to become Capital A Group. The name change was aimed to reflect the Group's new core business strategy as an investment holding company with a portfolio of synergistic travel and lifestyle businesses that have transformed the AirAsia brand into more than an airline. Some of Capital A's businesses are Airasia Super App BigPay, aircraft engineering division Asia Digital Engineering (ADE), and logistics venture Teleport.