Billionaire Elon Musk is being sued by 4 former Twitter executives who allege that the multi-CEO owes them $128 million in severance on account of wrongful termination. The previous employees say they were fired immediately after Musk accomplished his $44 billion takeover of the social media company in October 2022.
Amongst those searching for monetary compensation are former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former Head of Legal, Policy and Trust at Twitter, Vijaya Gadde, and former Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett.
Related: Twitter Is Being Sued for $500 Million By Laid-Off Employees Claiming Unpaid Severances
The lawsuit was filed on Monday within the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where Twitter’s former HQ was.
The document alleges that Musk fired the executives “without reason” because he didn’t wish to pay their advantages and made up a “fake cause” to get away with it, citing that Musk wrote the staff had committed “gross negligence” and “willful misconduct” without evidence supporting the claims.
“After Defendant Elon Musk definitively agreed to purchase Twitter, Inc. for $44 billion, the stock market declined, and Musk tried to back out of the deal, despite having no legal or contractual justification to accomplish that. Twitter sued Musk to implement the deal, and over months of intensive litigation, each of Musk’s baseless excuses was stripped away,” the document states. “Under Musk’s control, Twitter has grow to be a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others. Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the principles don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him.”
In typical Musk fashion, he cheekily responded to the allegations on X.
First, the billionaire posted a crying laughing emoji in response to a user who wrote: “Parag Agrawal is suing Elon Musk claiming that he did actually get quite a bit done that week.”
?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 4, 2024
In a second response, Musk wrote “If the emoji suits” underneath a post of Agrawal and a clown emoji.
If the emoji suits … ?♂️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2024
This isn’t the primary Twitter severance lawsuit.
In July 2023, the billionaire was hit with a $500 million class motion lawsuit by former Twitter employees who claimed they weren’t paid the severance they were promised, which was reportedly “two months of their base pay plus one week of pay for each full yr of service” upon being laid off.
Related: Elon Musk Gets Into Twitter Fight With Ex-Worker
“There have been lots of those that didn’t appear to have lots of value,” Musk said last May on the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, regarding the mass layoffs and cuts immediately following his takeover of the corporate. “I believe there’s the likelihood for significant cuts at other firms without affecting their productivity, actually increasing their productivity.”