Specific Terms of the Settlement Not Disclosed
Elon Musk's social media company X (formerly Twitter) has reached a settlement in a lawsuit filed by former executives, including the former Twitter CEO, seeking nearly 200 billion won.
According to foreign media reports on October 12, X has decided to settle a lawsuit brought by four former senior executives, including former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and the former Chief Financial Officer, who demanded $128 million (approximately 183.4 billion won) in severance pay. The settlement was first disclosed last week in documents submitted to the federal court in San Francisco.
The severance pay they requested was calculated by adding one year’s salary to unexercised stock options, valued at $54.20 per share. At the time, CEO Agrawal’s annual salary was $1 million, and the stock options granted to be exercised in stages amounted to $12.5 million. In addition, he was entitled to a special severance package of $60 million in the event of involuntary termination.
The specific terms of the settlement have not been made public. On October 1, the court postponed the filing deadline and hearing schedule for the case to allow time to finalize the settlement process.
The former executives claimed that after Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, he unjustly forced them out by accusing them of misconduct and failed to pay the severance packages promised prior to the acquisition. They also argued that they were entitled to one year’s salary and hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock compensation.
Musk and X have maintained that these executives were lawfully dismissed for poor performance and that there was no wrongdoing involved in the process.
In August, X also agreed to settle a separate lawsuit filed by former employees demanding $500 million (approximately 700 billion won) in unpaid severance related to mass layoffs.
These cases are among several legal disputes Musk has faced since acquiring Twitter for $44 billion in 2022. After the acquisition, Musk laid off more than half of the company’s workforce and changed the company’s name to ‘X’.
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