Former Twitter executives charge Elon Musk for $128 million in severance

Four former leaders of X.com, formerly Twitter, are filing a lawsuit against the company and its owner, Elon Musk. They claim a total of $128 million in unpaid bills, and accuse the billionaire of having fired them without valid reason.

Just after buying the platform for $44 billion, Elon Musk led a huge wave of layoffs, affecting 1 in 2 employees. He also got rid of the firm’s managers to “ gross negligence and willful misconduct “. According to Parag Agrawal, Viyaja Gadde, Ned Segal and Sean Edgett, the former CEO, legal, financial and general counsel of Twitter, the businessman has “ engineered » their departures to avoid paying millions of dollars. No example of fault on their part would have been indicated during their thanks.

Elon Musk would have invented serious mistakes to avoid paying compensation

“ The alleged dismissal of the plaintiffs was a sham intended to deprive the plaintiffs of their compensation “, denounces the complaint, filed in a federal court in California. Thus, the four men claim that under a severance plan several years old, the company owes them a year’s salary as well as shares. In total, $128 million is expected to be distributed among them, including more than $57 million for Agrawal.

Former executives believe that Elon Musk, furious at having been forced to finally complete the acquisition of Twitter, wanted to save as much money as possible, to the detriment of people working within the company. As a reminder, the entrepreneur withdrew a few weeks after announcing his intention to buy the social network, but was forced to comply by the American justice system.

Last year, a former Twitter human resources manager filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of failing to pay $500 million in severance packages to laid-off staff. However, the court ruled in favor of the platform.

X.com accumulates unpaid debts

Three former Twitter executives had already filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of refusing reimbursement for costs related to federal investigations.

According to the most recent complaint, Elon Musk transformed the social network into an entity surfing on illegality, citing in particular the firm’s numerous unpaid invoices. “ Musk doesn’t pay his bills, thinks the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to crush anyone who disagrees with him », they denounce. For the moment, X.com did not wish to comment.

Sources: BBC, The Financial Times