2024-11-02 10:51:08 :
According to a report by Bloomberg on November 2, a U.S. District Court judge in California allowed former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, to file a lawsuit against Elon Musk. Ask for severance pay.
In a ruling late on November 1, US time, a judge ruled that a fired Twitter executive can sue the billionaire for defrauding severance by terminating his position at the social media company during the acquisition and before his resignation. fee. , it added.
Musk made a highly publicized acquisition in 2022, taking over Twitter and quickly renaming the social media platform “X.”
“200 million price difference”
In the complaint filed in March, the former executives cited a passage in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, in which the billionaire was quoted as telling the author as he rushed to complete the acquisition, “In the cookie jar There is a $200 million difference between cookies.” Close tonight and do it again tomorrow morning. “
Musk has been fighting legal claims after he laid off thousands of Twitter employees two years ago after buying the social media company for $44 billion and renaming it X Corp.
At least one former employee was awarded an unpaid severance package in a closed-door arbitration in September that could set a precedent for other similar cases, the employee’s lawyer told Bloomberg News.
In July, Musk and X Corp. defeated a lawsuit alleging that the company owed about 6,000 laid-off employees at least $500 million in severance pay under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney on Friday rejected arguments from Musk’s attorneys that Agrawal’s claims should be dismissed. Agrawal is joined in the lawsuit by Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top legal and policy official. Ned Siegel, chief financial officer; and Sean Edgett, the company’s general counsel.
They claimed they were owed severance equal to one year’s salary plus unvested stock awards based on the purchase price.
Chesney is overseeing two other lawsuits filed by Twitter executives, including one filed by Nicholas Caldwell, general manager of “Core Technologies” who is seeking $20 million in severance compensation. On Friday, a judge denied Musk’s request to dismiss Caldwell’s complaint, which mirrored Agrawal’s.
Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
The case is Agrawal v. Musk, No. 24-cv-01304, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco).
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
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