Elon Musk and his social media company, X (formerly Twitter), have reached a settlement with a group of top former executives over a dispute involving $128 million in severance pay.
The executives, who include former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and former General Counsel Sean Edgett, had sued the company in 2024.
They alleged that Musk withheld their severance payments, viewing it as a form of “revenge” after he was compelled to complete the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, a deal he had previously attempted to abandon.
The four executives were fired within hours after Musk took control of Twitter in October 2022. The timing was critical, as their severance payments and vested stock options—allegedly totaling over $128 million for this group were due just one day later.
The lawsuit referred to information in the 2023 authorized biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson, which claimed Musk deliberately did not want the executives to collect their severance. Isaacson wrote that this was due to the final acquisition price and Musk’s belief that Twitter’s management had misled him.
The book suggested Musk hastened the close of the sale so he could fire the executives “for cause,” a designation that would typically negate severance rights. However, the executives’ lawsuit contested that the stated cause for their termination was not substantiated.
A court order signed on October 1 in the U.S. Northern District Court of California confirmed that both sides have reached a settlement, though the terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. The order effectively put a hold on upcoming depositions, including one scheduled for Musk, allowing the parties time to finalize the settlement conditions.
This resolution marks the second major severance dispute X has settled this year, following a separate agreement reached in August with a different group of former employees who claimed they were owed hundreds of millions in severance.
