Musk settles suit by ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal over denied severance pay

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By Jef Feeley

 

Elon Musk and the company formerly known as Twitter have agreed to resolve a $128 million lawsuit filed last year by former Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal and three other top officials who said they were denied severance payments.  

Terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed in a Sept 30 federal court filing, which pushed back deadlines in the case and the date of a scheduled hearing in San Francisco. 

 

“The parties have reached a settlement and the settlement requires certain conditions to be met in the near term,” a lawyer for the executives said in the filing.  

The accord comes as Musk and officials of X Corp — Twitter’s new name — agreed in August to settle a $500 million suit by about 6,000 laid off rank-and-file employees, who said the billionaire stiffed them on severances after he took over the social-media platform. 

 

Representatives for X and Musk didn’t immediately respond to an email Tuesday seeking comment on the settlement. A lawyer for the former executives also didn’t immediately return an email for comment.

 

Musk acquired Twitter in 2022 after abandoning an attempt to renege on his $44 billion takeover offer after a judge in Delaware — where Twitter was incorporated at the time — ruled against him in several pre-trial decisions. 

 

Immediately after taking over, Musk fired some top-ranking Twitter executives. Those who sued along with Agrawal were Vijaya Gadde, who was the top legal and policy official; Ned Segal, the company’s chief financial officer; and Sean Edgett, Twitter’s former general counsel who now serves the same role for Match Group.

 

Twitter, which the billionaire renamed X, was accused in multiple suits of labor and workplace violations, including failing to pay severance to thousands of laid-off workers.

 

Last month, a federal judge in Delaware threw out part of a severance class-action case brought by former Twitter workers who alleged wage theft by Musk, saying the billionaire couldn’t be held liable as an “alter ego” of the company. 

 

The California Twitter case is Agrawal v. Musk, 24-cv-01304, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).