Elon Musk Sued By Former Execs For Non-Payment

Date: March 05, 2024

Elon Musk, the running CEO of X, has been sued by Paras Aggarwal and other Execs for nonpayments of severance and unvested stock awards.

Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk in 2022 and then rebranded to X. That’s not the only thing Elon Musk did after successfully acquiring the company. After the acquisition, Elon Musk immediately fired Twitter’s former CEO, Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde, and General Counsel Sean Edgett. The company, however, did not fulfill the required financial obligations, which is why it is now facing a huge lawsuit worth $128 million in unpaid severance payments.

The former Execs claim that Musk made up fake reasons to fire them all abruptly and appointed various employees to uphold his decision. Firing all three top management personnel without a reason who were also the company's co-founders has fired up the rage even more. This pattern is similar to an ongoing claim by ‘Droves’ of former rank-and-file Twitter employees who said their severance package was not delivered as promised.

“Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others,” says the lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California. “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.”

Musk has always been famous for a dictator-like ruling for all his business kingdoms. Being the most influential person today, he can subdue any legal action against him with the top legal teams. “If Musk felt that the attorneys’ fees payments, or any other payments, were improper, his remedy was to seek to terminate the deal — not to withhold executives’ severance payments after the deal closed,” the lawsuit said.

Musk bought Twitter for $54.20 per share and acquired complete control of the company in 2022. The only two reasons for firing all three of the Execs were gross negligence and willful misconduct. The Execs claim that they were also required to pay fees to comply with their fiduciary duties to the company. X faces many lawsuits against the company, with the suing parties ranging from employees to former business owners.