Musk fired them soon after taking over Twitter.
New Delhi: When Elon Musk took over Twitter he made radical changes in the company set up as well as rechristened Twitter as X. The then CEO Parag Agrawal, and a few other top executives were asked to leave. Following that, Parag and others filed a case against Musk.
Now the court has ruled that Parag Agrawal and other high-ranking executives have the right to sue Elon Musk.
Musk had allegedly fired them soon after taking over Twitter to avoid paying them severance packages.
The judge is also overseeing another litigation brought by Nicholas Caldwell, Twitter’s former core tech general manager, who is seeking $20 million as lost severance compensation. The judge, on the same day, denied a request by Musk’s lawyers to dismiss Caldwell’s claims, says a Bloomberg report.
With this ruling, Parag Agrawal can go ahead and sue Elon Musk for ending their roles with the company. Others who have joined Parag in the lawsuit are Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s former chief legal officer; Ned Segal, the former chief financial officer; and Sean Edgett, the former general counsel.
The executives contended that Musk deliberately terminated them before they could officially resign, thereby depriving them of the compensation they were promised. They all assert that they are entitled to a year’s salary plus unvested stock awards valued at the acquisition price.
Their lawsuit cited a statement Musk made to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, in which he admitted his eagerness to finalise the deal to prevent “a $200 million differential in the cookie jar between closing tonight and doing it tomorrow morning.”
They also accuse Musk of fabricating reasons for their termination to avoid fulfilling severance obligations.
“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,” the executives said.
Musk is facing a web of legal conflicts, and disputes over employee compensation are recurring.
Following his acquisition of Twitter, which he renamed X Corp., Musk implemented drastic layoffs affecting thousands of employees as part of a major company overhaul.