{"id":24475,"date":"2024-03-05T01:26:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T07:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24475"},"modified":"2024-03-05T01:26:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T07:26:48","slug":"former-twitter-execs-sue-elon-musk-for-more-than-128-million-in-unpaid-severance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24475","title":{"rendered":"Former Twitter execs sue Elon Musk for more than $128 million in unpaid severance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Four former Twitter executives filed a lawsuit on Monday against the company\u2019s current owner, Elon Musk,<\/a> arguing he withheld more than $128 million of their severance pay after firing them when he took over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit<\/a> was brought by the company\u2019s former chief executive officer, Parag Agrawal; the company\u2019s former chief financial officer, Ned Segal; the company\u2019s head of legal, policy and trust, Vijaya Gadde; and the company\u2019s acting general counsel, Sean Edgett.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk fired all four plaintiffs when he bought Twitter, which he renamed X. They are now asking for severance benefits and payments for attorneys\u2019 fees and interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claims the executives\u2019 contracts stated that they were entitled to severance pay if Twitter became no longer a public company. When Musk took the company private in October 2022, he did not pay them, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit points to a section of Walter Isaacson\u2019s biography on Musk, who described to Isaacson his strategy of avoiding paying the severance by manufacturing \u201ccause.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit says that the plaintiffs lobbied shareholders against Musk\u2019s \u201cwrongful attempt to renege on the deal\u201d to buy Twitter, which angered Musk. The lawsuit quotes Musk from the biography saying that he would \u201chunt every single one of\u201d the executives and directors \u201ctill the day they day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMusk\u2019s own words show that he made up cause and terminated Plaintiffs to avoid paying them the benefits they are owed under the Plans. As quoted above, Musk admitted his plan to his biographer Isaacson as it was happening. Musk orchestrated the closing and termination plan as a pretext to cut off Plaintiffs\u2019 severance, exact vengeance, and save himself money. He terminated Plaintiffs and manufactured cause for the specific purpose of interfering with their right to benefits under the Plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause Musk decided he didn\u2019t want to pay Plaintiffs\u2019 severance benefits, he simply fired them without reason, then made up fake cause and appointed employees of his various companies to uphold his decision,\u201d the lawsuit read. \u201cHe claimed in his termination letters that each Plaintiff committed \u2018gross negligence\u2019 and \u2018willful misconduct\u2019 without citing a single fact in support of this claim,\u201d the lawsuit read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hill has reached out to representatives for San Francisco-based X for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four former Twitter executives filed a lawsuit on Monday against the company\u2019s current owner, Elon Musk, arguing he withheld more than $128 million of their severance pay after firing them when he took over. The lawsuit was brought by the company\u2019s former chief executive officer, Parag Agrawal; the company\u2019s former chief financial officer, Ned Segal; the company\u2019s head of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5783],"tags":[3070,4479,26990,1211],"class_list":["post-24475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-elon-musk","tag-prosecution","tag-severance","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24478,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24475\/revisions\/24478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}