Elon Musk is being sued for a pretty astronomical sum by executives he fired when he took over Twitter in late 2022.
Musk's purchase of the social network (which has since been renamed X) was a very public one. It saw a host of firings in the days and weeks after he took over - he's since estimated he let go around 80% of the company.
Now, four of the top executives when Musk took over at Twitter are suing him for $128 million, alleging that he has failed to pay them the severance money they're owed and they were fired without reason in the first place.
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The four claimants are Twitter’s former CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal counsel Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett.
They allege that in order to not pay severance, Musk "made up fake cause and appointed employees of his various companies to uphold his decision", and that this is a pattern for Musk at Twitter.
The lawsuit goes on: "Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others.
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"Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him".
Each executive wants a year's pay, as their severance package apparently entitled them to, along with unvested stock awards valued at the acquisition price of Twitter, which many now think was inflated when Musk completed his purchase for a huge 44 billion dollars.
At the time of their firings, Musk and his team apparently used the reasoning that each had been guilty of "gross negligence" or "wilful misconduct", with one example given being the use of third-party lawyers during the acquisition, instead of just the in-house team.
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The lawsuit pushes back on this argument, saying: "If Musk felt that the attorneys’ fees payments, or any other payments, were improper, his remedy was to seek to terminate the deal - not to withhold executives’ severance payments after the deal closed".
What isn't clear at this stage is how this will all resolve itself - Musk and X haven't made any public statement about the lawsuit yet, so whether they might settle out of court or see this drag on is anyone's guess.
Either way, it promises another chapter in the tumultuous story that has been Musk's Twitter takeover.
X has been contacted for comment.