Elon Musk took over Twitter on October 27.
Muhammed Selim Korkutata / Anadolu Agency
Laid-off Twitter employees are suing the company saying they were promised a range of severance benefits.
The lawsuit says they were assured these benefits would hold after Elon Musk bought Twitter.
However, recently laid-off employees say Twitter reneged on the promised severance pay.
Laid-off Twitter employees suing the social media platform say the company — now owned by Elon Musk — reneged on previously promised severance benefits.
Five employees — who filed a class-action suit against Twitter on November 1 — now say they were promised at least two month’s severance pay, bonus plan compensation, cash value of vested Twitter equity, and healthcare coverage, but these promises were not kept when Musk laid off about 3,700 staffers on November 4.
The fresh allegations were made in updated court filings to the San Francisco federal court on Tuesday, which were also seen by Insider.
According to the Tuesday update, Twitter’s management previously said at several all-hands meetings, wrote in a recent FAQ, and stated in a merger agreement that employees would get at least the equivalent of the originally promised package if they were laid off after Musk acquired the company.
Twitter employees “reasonably relied” on this promise in the weeks leading up to Musk’s purchase and chose not to look for jobs elsewhere, the lawsuit shows.
However, Twitter later told employees affected by November’s mass layoffs that they would only get one month’s base pay after their termination, the updated lawsuit alleged.
This claim appears to contrast a November 4 tweet from Musk, which said that all exited employees were offered three months’ severance.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
Musk has worked every day to find new ways to screw over Twitter staff, attorney says
In response to queries from Insider, Shannon Liss-Riordan — the attorney who filed the lawsuit — said Musk is counting an extra two months of severance pay because some workers were told on November 4 that they would be laid off in two months’ time.
These employees, which include three of the plaintiffs, were locked out of their company accounts on November 3, but were told they would be paid until January 4, 2023, their lawsuit said.
“This pay is not severance pay,” Liss-Riordan wrote in the lawsuit, accusing Musk of using this period of payment only to comply with federal and state labor laws. The WARN Act, or the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, is a federal law that requires businesses with 100 or more employees to give 60 days advance notice of mass layoffs or other work disruptions.
Liss-Riordan filed an emergency motion on behalf of the five employees on Wednesday evening. It seeks to compel Twitter to tell laid-off employees about the pending lawsuit before it can reach any separation agreements with workers.
The motion accused Twitter of trying to get employees to release all claims on their compensation benefits in exchange for their one month of severance pay.
“Since taking control of Twitter just two weeks ago, it seems Elon Musk has worked every day to find new and creative ways to screw over the company’s workers,” Liss-Riordan said in a statement to Insider. “This emergency motion that we just filed is an effort to protect the employees Twitter is laying off from signing away their rights to get what they are owed by the company.”
Twitter’s former top four executives — Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, and Sarah Personette — stood to gain a collective $88 million from being fired by Musk. On October 31, Musk denied reports that he fired the top executives “for cause” in order to avoid giving them hefty severance payouts.
Musk did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, which was sent after-hours. Twitter’s no longer employs its communications department.