Ex-Twitter CEO, others sue Musk over $128m unpaid severance

Parag Agrawal, ex-chief executive officer of Twitter, and four former Twitter executives have sued Elon Musk over $128 million in unpaid severance claim.

In the lawsuit filed in a San Francisco court on Monday, the four former executives accused the Tesla CEO of firing them without cause, according to a TechCrunch report.

“Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others,” the plaintiffs said in the 39-page lawsuit.

“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 added.

The former executives also including ex-CFO Ned Segal, ex-chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and former General Counsel Sean Edgett said they were owed one year’s salary and stock options.

Musk fired Agrawal, Gadde and Segal in late October 2022 after completing his purchase of Twitter, now called X, for $44 billion.

Musk’s purchase of the platform came on the heels of a bitter dispute with top executives after Twitter took him to court to ensure he honoured the terms of the acquisition.

“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,” the former executives said in the suit.

X is currently facing three other lawsuits by former workers seeking large severance packages, including a pair of class action suits that claim rank-and-file workers are owed at least $500 million.