Elon Musk's X finally agrees to settlement talks with unpaid laid off Twitter employees

Thousands of Twitter employees were promised severance. Musk has avoided them since.
By Matt Binder  on 
Elon Musk, X logo, and old Twitter logo
Musk's X finally agrees to meet with laid off former Twitter employees still waiting for their severance. Credit: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Roughly 10 and a half months ago, Elon Musk officially acquired Twitter. In the weeks and months following his tumultuous take over, thousands of the company's employees were laid off by Musk. These former employees have been waiting for their promised severance ever since.

The wait may soon be over, according to a new Bloomberg report. A lawyer representing nearly 2,000 ex-employees says that X, the company formerly known as Twitter, has finally agreed to meet. The company is looking to reach a settlement regarding the multitude of claims that have been filed.

Last month, it was reported that Musk's social media company was facing millions of dollars in filing fees due to the number of arbitration cases against the company by former employees. These ex-Twitter employees have been looking for the severance packages guaranteed to them by their former employer, along with backpay and promised bonuses. 

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However, Musk and company have essentially ghosted them.

These employees have attempted to resolve the issue by first filing a class action lawsuit against X, however, their employment contracts with Twitter required that disputes be resolved through arbitration. With the sheer number of cases, combined with fees that X was responsible for paying for each one, the arbitration requirement ended up backfiring on the company. 

With arbitration filing fees for X accounting for more than $3.5 million, the company allegedly decided to just ignore them, resulting in additional suits being filed.

Negotiations between Musk's X and its thousands of laid off employees are currently set for the beginning of December. We'll see what happens then.


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