Elon Musk close to settling with Twitter over severance dispute

Elon Musk (L) and Parag Agrawal (R). Photo: wikipedia.org

#Elon Musk# Twitter# Parag Agrawal# settlement# severance pay# lawsuit# X Corp# executives# Vijaya Gadde# Ned Segal

San Francisco/IBNS-CMEDIA: Elon Musk, who acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022 in a $44 billion deal, is reportedly close to settling a $128 million severance pay lawsuit filed last year with four former key Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, according to a Reuters report.

The former executives, who filed the lawsuit seeking court’s intervention over unpaid severance, also include ex-CFO Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and ex-general counsel Sean Edgett.

“The parties have reached a settlement and the settlement requires certain conditions to be met in the near term,” according to a last week court filing by attorneys for the plaintiffs, Reuters reported. 

The settlement was disclosed in a San Francisco court filing, but the exact terms and conditions of the agreement prompted a federal judge to postpone filing deadlines and a scheduled hearing to allow time for finalisation, the report said.

The complainants have alleged that Musk wrongly accused them of misconduct after they filed a case against him for backing out of the deal to buy the company.

Musk has denied the allegations, stating that the firings were spurred by performance issues.

The lawsuit also alleges that the world’s richest man refused to provide the severance packages that had been promised to the executives before his takeover of Twitter.

According to court filings cited by Fox Business, each of the former executives was entitled to one year’s salary along with substantial stock option compensation.

In a related matter, X and its owner proceeded in August to resolve another lawsuit in which 6,000 former Twitter employees claimed they were owed $500 million in severance pay.