Elon Musk’s X Corp Settles Severance Lawsuit With Former Twitter Executives

Elon Musk’s X Corp has reached a settlement with four former top Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, who claimed they were owed $128 million in severance pay following Musk’s 2022 takeover of the social media platform, Reuters reported Thursday.

The settlement was disclosed in a San Francisco federal court filing last week, though its terms were not made public. A judge has delayed hearings to allow the deal to be finalized.

The executives — Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and former general counsel Sean Edgett — alleged Musk falsely accused them of misconduct and terminated them without paying the severance they had been contractually promised. The lawsuit said each was entitled to one year’s salary and substantial stock options.

The agreement follows another settlement in August between X and rank-and-file employees who claimed they were collectively owed $500 million in severance after mass layoffs. Both cases stem from Musk’s sweeping cost-cutting measures after acquiring Twitter for $44 billion and rebranding it as X.

Musk and X have denied wrongdoing, maintaining that the executives were dismissed for performance-related reasons.