Company ‘X’ Faces 2,200 Lawsuits Over Unpaid Severance, Bracing for Hefty Penalties

Elon Musk is facing legal troubles related to unpaid severance for around 6,000 employees he laid off after acquiring Twitter. Reports suggest that his company, now known as X, deals with approximately 2,200 arbitration cases from former employees. These cases also come with $3.5 million in mandatory fees without factoring in the actual severance payments owed to the terminated employees.

Shortly after Elon Musk assumed control of Twitter in October, he initiated a significant workforce reduction, letting go of over half of its employees. As part of this move, he pledged to provide most of the departing employees with at least two months’ worth of salary and an additional week’s pay for each year they had dedicated to the company. However, many individuals have come forward, asserting that they have yet to receive any of the promised compensation. Consequently, several former employees have resorted to legal action, filing lawsuits in pursuit of the benefits they were assured.

One of these suits, filed earlier this year, invokes an arbitration clause in employees’ contracts that, according to Mashable, leaves Musk’s company on the hook for $1,600 in arbitration fees per two-party case but only requires that former employees pay $400. With over 2,000 cases, the social media network’s arbitration bill alone comes in at nearly $4 million.

X has reportedly refused to pay those bills, arguing that it hasn’t required the former employees to move their disputes to arbitration. Now, ex-staffers have filed another lawsuit demanding the company pay the fees associated with their original filing

The recent news aligns with a series of allegations directed at Elon Musk. Since the billionaire’s acquisition, the prominent social media platform has found itself entangled in numerous legal disputes, some of which are linked to allegations of unpaid debts. While a few of these cases have been resolved or dropped, the company faced numerous non-payment lawsuits in February alone. Furthermore, in late June, an Australian infrastructure firm filed a lawsuit against X for failing to settle a bill exceeding $600,000 related to work conducted in Twitter’s offices. Additionally, various property owners have resorted to legal action against the company due to unpaid rent for multiple office spaces, including Boston, Seattle, and Oakland locations.

On the same side, Elon Musk is currently in the process of introducing a significant modification to the Twitter platform. This change involves restricting the ability to participate in polls exclusively to verified users.

Twitter polls serve as a means for companies and individuals to gather insights on various topics and have become quite popular. However, only Twitter Blue subscribers will soon be privileged to participate in these polls. Musk’s reasoning behind this change is to prevent the proliferation of spam bots in Twitter polls.

In response to a tweet suggesting that polls should be accessible solely to verified users, Musk stated, “We’re changing polls to allow votes only by verified users. That’s critical to avoid polls getting bot-spammed on controversial issues.”

At present, there is no clear indication of when this significant alteration will be put into effect.

In a recent blog post, Twitter announced an upcoming feature that will allow users to engage in audio and video calls directly on the platform. This exciting development means that all Twitter users, regardless of whether they access the platform via Android, iOS, or desktop, will soon have the option to connect with their contacts through calls, eliminating the need to share their phone numbers for communication.

While sharing the latest announcement on Twitter, Musk wrote, “Video & audio calls coming to X: Works on iOS, Android, Mac & PC, No phone number needed, X is the effective global address book. That set of factors is unique.”