Musk’s X Slapped with 2,200+ Unpaid Salary &#038; Bonus Cases, Worth Millions
After Musk acquired Twitter (now X) for $44 billion, he made a series of dramatic changes including ditching the ‘blue-tick’ verification; abruptly rebranding the platform’s name to ‘X’, making the blue bird extinct and purging nearly two third of his employees. However, these bold moves have since thrust the company into a legal area, as it now faces over 2,200 claims — estimated $3.5 million as reported by CNBC. The legal battle has come to light through court documents filed in the case of Chris Woodfield v. Twitter, X Corp., and Elon Musk (No. 1:23-cv-780-CFC). The fee for each filing in this case stands at a substantial $2,000, in accordance with the JAMS arbitration system, of which $400 will be borne by the former employees themselves. By January 2023, a mere three months after Musk’s acquisition, the court had already received 200 arbitration demands, a number that has since ballooned to over 2,200 by August. Adding fuel to the fire, in June, Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney involved in a proposed class-action lawsuit against the company, alleged that X had failed to disburse “tens of millions of dollars” in bonuses owed to its employees. This complaint is only one of the lawsuits from disgruntled former Twitter employees, all claiming that Musk did not uphold the commitments he made during the takeover. Experts expect that the number of legal cases may continue to rise, while X’s legal expenses mount as it defends its position. In response to the increasing legal pressure, the legal team has argued that X did not mandate its employees to address disputes through arbitration, thereby disclaiming responsibility for the former employee’s share of the filing fees. X’s legal woes go beyond internal disputes. In July, the company filed a lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a hate speech watchdog organisation. Simultaneously, X initiated proceedings against Wachtell law firm previously employed by Twitter’s prior administration to ensure Musk upheld his end of the acquisition deal. The lawsuit saga does not end here as the company has faced multiple lawsuits ranging from unpaid bills to copyright issues.
The fee for each case stands at $2,000, of which $400 will be borne by the former employees themselves.
Elon Musk's bold moves have thrust the company into a legal area, as it now faces over 2,200 claims — estimated $3.5 million.
["Elon Musk"]
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Tasmia is a tech journalist at AIM, looking to bring a fresh perspective to emerging technologies and trends in data science, analytics, and artificial intelligence.