Elon Musk is facing a $128 million lawsuit from four former Twitter executives for failing to pay them severance packages after the billionaire tech tycoon bought the social network. The suit, filed Monday in California, follows a separate legal complaint filed last year by rank-and-file employees seeking $500 million in unpaid severance pay.
“Mr. Musk decided he did not want to pay plaintiffs severance pay, so he fired them without cause, fabricated a false cause, and appointed employees from various companies to support his decision.” The complaint alleges.
The four plaintiffs in the lawsuit include former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former chief financial officer Ned Segal, former general counsel Sean Ejit, and former chief legal officer Vijaya Segal. Includes Mr. Gadde. After Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in 2022, he fired everyone in a wave of mass layoffs, with executives claiming at the time that they were fired for cause and didn’t have to pay them any severance. .
“The ’cause’ is not ‘a business decision approved by the board of directors that Mr. Musk dislikes,'” the suit says. “In his termination letter, he alleged that each plaintiff committed ‘gross negligence’ and ‘willful misconduct,’ but he did not cite any facts to support this claim.” Mr. Musk and Mr. No public comment has been made on this matter. Alex Spiro, a lawyer who frequently represents Mr. Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is one of several related to Musk’s involuntary takeover of Twitter and subsequent operation of the platform, which he renamed X. The National Labor Relations Board also made a complaint Earlier this year, Musk’s rocket company SpaceX claimed it illegally fired eight employees after they issued a letter criticizing Musk’s leadership.
After taking over the company, Musk said he laid off about 80% of Twitter’s staff. told the BBC In an interview last year. The site has struggled on a number of fronts since Musk’s acquisition, including a decline in advertising revenue and a spike in hate speech as Musk rolled back content moderation efforts. He initially tried to back out of the deal, but Twitter sued to force it to close.
Musk blamed the drop in ad revenue on anti-hate watchdog groups that released a report detailing racist and extremist content on the platform. He has filed ongoing lawsuits against two of the organizations, Media Matters and the Center For Countering Digital Hate. A California judge is expected to decide this week whether to dismiss the lawsuit against the Center to Combat Digital Hate.
