Danielle KayeBusiness reporter
Elon Musk has agreed to settle a $128m (£100m) lawsuit brought by four former top executives at Twitter, now X, over unpaid severance when he took over the company.
The executives, who include former CEO Parag Agrawal, argued that Musk fired them “without reason” after he bought Twitter in 2022 and denied them severance payments.
“The parties have reached a settlement and the settlement requires certain conditions to be met in the near term,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in a court filing last week. They did not disclose the terms of the settlement.
The suit, filed last year, is one of several legal challenges over unpaid severance for workers who were laid off after Musk took over.
Lawyers for the former Twitter executives, and for Musk and X, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the settlement.
The former top brass – Mr Agrawal, former chief financial officer Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and former general counsel Sean Edgett – contended in their lawsuit that they are owed one year’s salary and stock awards, under a years-old severance plan.
They also said Musk’s move was part of a pattern of refusing to pay former staff what they were due.
In August, Musk and X agreed to settle a separate lawsuit filed by roughly 6,000 former rank-and-file Twitter employees who argued they were owed $500m in severance pay.
Musk purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44bn, after initially trying to back out of his offer. After the acquisition closed, he immediately moved to fire top leaders at the company, including the four executives. Musk slashed Twitter’s workforce by more than half.
In their lawsuit, the former top officials contend that Musk was frustrated about being forced to complete the purchase and that the multi-billionaire falsely accused them of misconduct to push them out.
