Former execs allege Musk terminated them to avoid paying severance
Elon Musk is facing a lawsuit from Twitter's former top executives, including its former CEO, for allegedly not paying them over $128 million in combined severance pay after he took over the popular social media platform.
The executives include former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Sagal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and former General Counsel Sean Edgett, according to media reports.
The former executives are alleging that Musk didn't pay them their severance pay as revenge after they sued him when he tried to back out of his offer to purchase the company in 2022.
These executives were the first people on Musk's firing line when he bought Twitter in 2022, which he later rebranded as "X". In terminating them, Musk made the accusation that the executives of misled him and other Twitter investors.
Avoid paying severance
But the executives are now saying that Musk didn't cite a single fact to support the claim that they committed "gross negligence" and "willful misconduct" as he cited in their termination letters.
According to the executives, Musk intentionally terminated them to prevent them from resigning and claiming severance benefits.
"Because Musk decided he didn't want to pay plaintiffs' severance benefits, he simply fired them without reason, then made up fake cause and appointed employees of his various companies to uphold his decision," the complaint read as quoted by CNN.
Now, the former executives are saying they are each owed one year's salary and hundreds of thousands of stock options, Reuters reported.
The lawsuit adds to the expanding list of legal actions brought against X, including a proposed class action initiated by a former Twitter HR leader in July.
According to the lawsuit, the company owes at least $500 million in severance pay to rank-and-file employees who were laid off after Musk took over.
