Ex-Twitter Executives Sue Musk for Unpaid Severance

AFP/APP
San Francisco: Former top executives of Twitter sued Elon Musk on Monday, saying he had failed to pay them nearly $130 million since the billionaire took over the social media company and dismissed them.
“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,” they said in the lawsuit filed in a California federal court.
The plaintiffs include former CEO Parag Agrawal, who, according to the lawsuit, is claiming $57.4 million in benefits, as well as fired CFO Ned Segal, who is asking for $44.5 million.
The other plaintiffs are former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and the company’s then-general counsel Sean Edgett.
Musk terminated Agrawal, Gadde, and Segal from their posts in late October 2022 after closing his contentious $44 billion takeover of Twitter.
According to the suit, citing a recent authorised biography of Musk, the tycoon went out of his way to ensure the executives were not able to resign from the company before he fired them in the first moments after taking over.
The executives “appropriately and vigorously represented the interests of Twitter’s public shareholders throughout Musk’s wrongful attempt to renege on the deal,” the suit said.
“For their efforts, Musk vowed a lifetime of revenge,” it added.
This referred to the bitter months leading up to the buyout, when Agrawal and his team drew Musk’s anger for going to court to hold the Tesla chief to the terms of a takeover deal he had tried to escape.
“Because Musk decided he didn’t want to pay Plaintiffs’ severance benefits, he simply fired them without reason, then made up a fake cause and appointed employees of his various companies to uphold his decision,” the suit alleged.
Twitter has since been renamed X and has seen its staff numbers drastically slashed, with content moderation put on the back burner and many previously banned accounts reinstated.