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Four former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are suing company owner Elon Musk for allegedly imposing more than $128 million in severance payments on them after they were ousted from the company.
The former top officials said Musk showed “particular anger” toward them after taking over the social media platform in 2022, publicly vowing to withhold his severance pay to recoup about $200 million of the $44 billion settlement. according to a lawsuit filed Monday in federal court. court in Northern California.
Twitter, which Musk rebranded as series of lawsuits over failing to pay millions owed to sellers and landlords while allegedly trying to remain financially solvent.
“Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw that harshes employees, owners, suppliers and others. “Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to trample anyone who disagrees with him,” lawyers for Agrawal and the other former executives said in the lawsuit. 38 page document. complaint.
A spokesman for X declined to comment. Musk did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
As soon as he took over Twitter, Musk fired several other high-ranking executives in addition to Agrawal: Vijaya Gadde, who was the company’s top legal and political official; Ned Segal, CFO; and Sean Edgett, general counsel at Twitter.
The layoffs were not a surprise at the time. All of those executives had been key Twitter players in the company’s summer 2022 lawsuit aimed at forcing Musk to consummate his purchase of the platform after he tried to back out.
Each of the executives were to receive substantial payments as part of Musk’s deal to buy the company, which included language that would accelerate the vesting of unvested shares. Agrawal alone was to receive approximately $50 million in severance pay.
The case is Agrawal v. Musk, 24-cv-01304, United States District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).