Musk owned X reach tentative settlement with former Twitter staff

Elon Musk and his social media platform, X, have reportedly reached a tentative settlement with thousands of former twitter employees after a long-term battle over severance pay.

Primarily, the lawsuit seeking up to $500 million was filed by staff who were laid off following Musk's acquisition of the company in 2022, and claimed they were not properly compensated.

On Wednesday a court hearing was released, and both parties have reached a settlement agreement.

A scheduled hearing on September 17 can be postponed while they mutually work to finalize a deal. The filing did not disclose any tentative agreement and the level of compensation that has been offered is uncertain.

According to the former twitter employees led by Courtney McMillian and Ronald Cooper, alleged that the company specifically failed to appropriately pay compensation packages after conducting massive layoffs.

Elon Musk, when acquired twitter in 2022, made a significant cut of more than 6000 employees in the labor force renewal.

The layoffs led to several lawsuits including from staff and executives and a preview of how Musk’s “department of government efficiency” would approach its dismantling of government agencies earlier this year.

Previously, the lawsuit was a significant legal victory for Musk. Judge Trina Thompson dismissed the case last year. Her ruling stated that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act did not recover the claims of former employees, forcing the petitioners to appeal the decision to a high court.

Whilst, one month of severance pay was given to laid-off workers, and most of them did not receive anything according to the lawsuit. 

The former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and other executives are still suing Musk in a separate pending case over allegations that he failed to pay them worth $128m in severance.