A special treat for Elon: 2,200 cases for not paying severance
www.motherjones.com
X is not, in fact, gonna give it to ya.

Elon Musk’s alleged penchant for not paying bills is catching up with him. In the wake of numerous lawsuits claiming the world’s richest man failed to pay severance owed to many of the 6,000 employees he fired after acquiring Twitter. On Monday, CNBC reported that the tech company now known as X is facing some 2,200 arbitration cases filed by ex-employees, which come with $3.5 million in required fees—an amount that doesn’t even include the actual severance owed to those Musk let go.

In October, shortly after taking Twitter’s reins, Musk laid off more than half of its employees, promising most at least two months’ salary plus a week’s pay for every year they’d worked at the firm. Thousands claim that they haven’t received a single dime, and ex-employees have since filed several lawsuits seeking their promised benefits.

  • PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world
    321·
    1 year ago

    I haven’t yet seen an article where a reporter totals up the numbers and associated dollar amounts associated with Musk’s mismanagement. In terms of general classes - and I’m just going off the top of my head here - we’re looking at (including only the twitter related ones):

    1. Failure to pay agreed upon payouts for fired employees
    2. Age discriminatory termination lawsuits
    3. Violation of employment contracts re: return to work and other conditions
    4. Failure to pay rents and infrastructure fees
    5. Failure to moderate content according to legally required regulations
    6. Allocation of TSLA employees to work at Twitter, a different company with different shareholders, thus robbing Peter to pay Paul on investors’ dimes

    There were also potential suits over mass terminations contrary to state and national laws, but I haven’t heard as much about those recently.

  • MrFlamey@lemmy.world
    171·
    1 year ago

    So was the rebranding of Twitter to X just so Elon could say “U fuckin’ wot m8? This company is X, and your employment contract is with Twitter, so it looks like you were never employed here.”?

    • TechnoBabble@lemm.eeEnglish
      18·
      1 year ago

      Fortunately that doesn’t work.

      Even if Musk totally shut down Twitter, then opened an identical platform named X, the contracts Twitter held are still enforceable under the law.

      There might be stipulations in the contracts where severance isn’t payable if the company fails, but if I remember correctly, this severance is something mandated by state law, and not just a contractual perk.

      So bottom line, Musk is liable unless his lawyers are able to worm their way into a settlement.

  • ewe@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    Smart. Flush money down the toilet trying to impersonate Trump by not paying your bills. Maybe he should run for president.

  • nucleative@lemmy.world
    51·
    1 year ago

    Waiting like this was smart. Unfortunately.

    Options:

    1. Stall as long as possible. Twitter makes a bunch of money. Have money to pay severances. All good.

    2. Twitter fails anyways. No money to pay anybody but had as long a runway as possible. Bankrupt and a financial guy nominated by a judge sorts it out.