Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Musk Settles $128M Lawsuit With Fired Twitter Execs

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Musk Settles $128M Lawsuit With Fired Twitter Execs · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Elon Musk
• 0:04
  Podcast. This is a show where we discuss
• 0:07
  the critical crossroads, The Shape, SpaceX, Tesla X, The
• 0:11
  Boring Company, and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
• 0:16
  Elon Musk has agreed to settle a $120 million lawsuit brought by
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  4 top Twitter executives he had fired immediately after buying
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  the company in 2022. They've all claimed that Musk
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  refused to pay them the severance they were
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  contractually owed, and that dispute is now ending quietly
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  with a deal whose exact terms remain confidential.
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  The settlement ends a legal battle that centered as much on
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  money as on Musk's personal animosity toward Twitter's
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  former leadership. But his executives weren't fired
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  for 'cause they were removed as part of Musk's first purge after
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  acquiring Twitter for $44 billion.
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  That abrupt move was not unexpected.
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  What followed, though, raised the stakes.
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  Musk denied their severance by arguing it acted in bad faith
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  during the deals closing process.
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  The executives responded with a lawsuit that accused him of
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  retaliation. They pointed to one line in
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  particular from Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk,
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  which quoted him as saying he would hunt every single one of
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  them till the day they die. That's horrible to say about
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  anybody. Wow, that's creepy.
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  Now. This case was only one part of a
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  growing pattern, though. Musk has faced multiple lawsuits
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  relating to severance payments at Twitter, now known as X.
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  Earlier this year, he agreed to settle a class action lawsuit
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  brought by roughly 6000 former employees who said they were
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  laid off without proper compensation.
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  Many claimed they received only partial severance or none at
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  all, even when contracts outline specific terms.
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  Illegal exposure Musk graded with these mass firings went
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  beyond money but challenging standard severance agreements
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  and voiding payments. On technicalities, Musk sent a
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  message that contradicted most corporate practices for
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  executive off boarding. In typical M&A situation,
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  C-Suite contracts are honored even when ownership changes.
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  Musk's refusal created both legal and reputational risks,
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  especially when former leaders fought back.
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  The former Twitter execs used direct documentation to support
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  their 'cause their lawsuit didn't rely on interpretation or
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  speculation. It cited Elon Musk's own words
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  from a published biography and pointed to clauses in their
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  contracts that guaranteed compensation if they were
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  terminated without cause. And that structure gave them a
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  strong legal foundation, which likely increased the pressure on
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  Musk to settle instead of going to trial.
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  Now, while this $120 million settlement will close 1 chapter,
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  it won't resolve the broader scrutiny of how Musk manages
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  employment matters at X. Severance disputes, abrupt
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  firings, and HR chaos have been a constant since the
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  acquisition. He laid off more than half the
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  company's staff in his first weeks of ownership, triggering
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  legal action from multiple directions.
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  And at one point, entire teams were dismissed via e-mail with
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  no prior warning or consultation.
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  The money involved in the settlement is substantial, but
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  the symbolism might matter more. Musk's aggressive playbook after
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  acquiring Twitter has lawsuits, federal complaints and backlash
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  against Elon. And agreeing to a settlement
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  with the execs he once threatened undermines the
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  hardline posture he tried to maintain for two years.
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  It also confirms that what was already suspected that his legal
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  position was very weak. He had done and his public
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  stance was very strong, but behind his public stance was a
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  weak man and he was trying to play the tough guy.
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  And now they settled out of court because he probably found
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  out that they were going to win, according to his lawyers.
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  And then he just said, whatever, I'll just give him whatever they
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  need and get him out of my hair. So that's usually what happens
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  with these things. And you know, you got to call
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  him out when when they do something bad or weird.
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  You know, Elon Musk, he does some bad stuff.
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  And even though I've had over 1100 Elon Musk podcast episodes,
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  I have to call him out when he does weird stuff, when he does
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  great stuff, of course I'm going to agree with him and you know,
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  talk about that too. But when he does weird stuff,
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  man, you got to call him out for you got to be objective about
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  this stuff. Can't just be straight down the
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  middle all the time. That's boring, and it's not how
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  life is. So Ilan had never, ever
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  explained publicly why he believed the executive severance
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  packages were invalid. Internally, the narrative was
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  that they tried to force the sale when he wanted to walk
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  away, which he saw is disloyalty.
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  But the courts don't reward personal grievance.
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  As a legal strategy, severance agreements are written precisely
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  to prevent this kind of dispute. And once the acquisition closed,
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  the contracts took effect. Firing someone out of spite does
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  not erase those terms. There's no indication that the
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  executives will return to the public eye after this case.
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  They'll probably just go away. They just want to walk away.
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  They want to get their money that they're owed, and they
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  don't care about being in the public eye.
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  They're probably not going to do a bunch of interviews on
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  podcasts or anything like that. And they're going to be, of
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  course, not just scrutinized, but probably attacked on X or
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  other platforms, especially by Elon Musk's supporters.
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  Some of these people are crazy, straight up.
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  But their decision to sue and now secure a settlement shows
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  they were prepared to challenge the world's richest person face
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  to face, and they won. Few others in Silicon Valley
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  have been willing to do that. Now this case also adds pressure
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  how X will manage future executive contracts.
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  Elon doesn't want any of this stuff to happen again.
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  If Musk tries to enforce non standard employment terms again,
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  future hires will likely demand legal protections upfront.
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  Also raises the question of whether any top level leader
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  would now join X under Musk without rock solid severance
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  agreements in the means to enforce them.
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  That's the key right there. That means to enforce them.
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  How do they get their money if Elon is just like, yeah, you
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  know, we're going to fire you just because, you know, you
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  weren't, you weren't loyal to me, so we're going to fire you.
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  That's a weird thing to say, too, you know, I don't know.
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  It's a power thing. It's a power trip.
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  Now, if you think these people deserve their money, please
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  leave me a comment. And if you think they didn't
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  deserve the money, also let me know in the comments wherever
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  you're listening to this podcast, because I want to know
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  both sides. I think it was a scummy thing to
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  do. You give people their money.
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  Never mess with never mess with people's money or their family,
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  right? Like those are the two things,
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  family, friends, money. So those are the three things, I
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  guess would be don't mess with those things.
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  And Elon mess with their money, which also in turn messes with
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  their families because now how are they going to put food on
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  the table? How are they going to pay their
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  car insurance? How are they going to pay their
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  mortgages? They're not because Elon was
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  being a little brat, basically. So I want to know what you think
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  about it, though. This is a conversation that I
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  like to have in the comments. I think this is a great
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  community. We built this up over the years
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  and I think our community, our comments are golden sometimes.
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  And if you leave a comment, of course, I'd like to read the
• 7:39
  comments on the air. And there are a few from a few
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  episodes ago that I was, you know, I read 1 on the air last
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  time. I thought it was important that
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  people get to know about the community and they get to know
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  about what other people think about this.
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  You know, there was one the other day and I talked about
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  this on the show yesterday. They said, you know, put the put
• 8:03
  the date in the in the title if you do an older episode and do a
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  rerun, basically. And I was like, man, sorry, I
• 8:13
  keep doing all these reruns because I was sick for like 2
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  weeks straight, 2-3 weeks straight and I couldn't keep up
• 8:18
  with it. Like I literally couldn't talk.
• 8:20
  I had something wrong. So I had to do that.
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  And some other people, you know, there's another, there's another
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  commenter here. Let me see what this says.
• 8:35
  It says nice update to Elon living your dream.
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  Thanks for including me on Spotify from Caroline.
• 8:43
  Thank you for being a fan for so long Caroline.
• 8:45
  Appreciate it. Jagdeep says the future is
• 8:48
  bright. Somebody said randomly only
• 8:51
  plays in my left ear. I checked all my audio files.
• 8:54
  I'm not sure if that happens, but I apologize for that if
• 8:56
  that's what's happening. Somebody said banger Miss Moon
• 9:01
  MSPK. There are others at at Walker
• 9:10
  10, of course at at Walker. I mean come on, how can you not
• 9:14
  like that person? They said this seems like a
• 9:17
  great podcast. Thank you at at Walker 10.
• 9:19
  Appreciate you. Then somebody said, and this is
• 9:24
  you know, I want these comments too.
• 9:25
  You love promoting anything that takes a chunk out of Elon.
• 9:30
  Like I don't love promoting that stuff.
• 9:32
  I, I really wish Elon were the same person.
• 9:37
  He's probably the same person, but he didn't show it back then
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  because he wasn't as powerful. The, the nice Elon, you know,
• 9:44
  the guy that wasn't into politics, the guy that was just
• 9:47
  like, hey, I'm going to make this cool stuff and I have these
• 9:50
  grand visions and I'm going to talk about them all the time.
• 9:54
  That's the Elon I liked. But then when he started to get
• 9:57
  into politics, he started being mean to people, you know, people
• 10:01
  you got to take notice about that stuff.
• 10:03
  So to Music of the Universe, who said you love promoting anything
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  that takes a chunk out of Elon? Not anything, just the things
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  that actually matter. Yeah.
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  So there's there's some great comments here.
• 10:20
  So I appreciate every kind of comment.
• 10:22
  Now, what I what I really need from you, if you've been a fan
• 10:24
  of the show for a long time or if you're a new fan, I would
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  really appreciate if you were to give the show a five star
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  review. Really helps me out.
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  It's free, takes literally 20 seconds out of your day and it's
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  going to change the outcome of this podcast dramatically.
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  So you know, there's there's some things that you can do in
• 10:46
  life that'll take you a while and they're not free.
• 10:50
  They might, they take your time, but this 20 seconds of your time
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  and I can guarantee you I've had 1100 episodes so far.
• 10:58
  I've been doing this for six years, Same podcast every single
• 11:01
  day for six years, except when I'm sick, of course, I have to
• 11:04
  do a little rerun stuff. But you've got an episode pretty
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  much every day for the last six years.
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  And I appreciate everybody who's sticking around.
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  So thank you for that. Thank you for the five star
• 11:18
  reviews, everybody. We've got it.
• 11:19
  We had a few come in the other day.
• 11:22
  So I appreciate you for doing that.
• 11:25
  Had one from Michael on Apple podcasts.
• 11:30
  Said great show, thanks for all you do.
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  Will we need some of those on Spotify?
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  If you're listening on Spotify, please the the reviews on
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  positioning for your show. The more interactions you get
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  It's like it's like YouTube. It's basically like the audio
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  got a second hit the subscribe button while you're down there.
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  All right, take care everybody. I will see you in the next one.
• 12:13
  And here's our outro. Hey, thank you so much for
• 12:16
  listening today. I really do appreciate your
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  support. If you could take a second and
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  hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever podcast
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  support the show even more, go to patreon.com/stagezero and
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  please take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you
• 12:45
  tomorrow.