Twitter’s former executives may be owed millions in golden parachute payouts. SlashGear spoke to a legal expert to see what Musk may do to stop those payments.
Elon Musk hasn’t just cleaned house at Twitter, but taken a scorched-earth approach. Less than a week has passed since his $44 billion deal to purchase the social network closed, and already Musk has ousted top execs — including Twitter’s former CEO, Parag Agrawal — and installed himself as new chief executive. The big question is, with Twitter going private, has Musk also opened himself up to legal backlash?
According to a report from The New York Times, Musk has not only shown Twitter’s former C-suite the door, but is claiming that the terminations were “for cause,” too. If that’s upheld, it could shield the Tesla CEO from millions in so-called golden parachute payments that Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, former general counsel Sean Edgett, and former top policy and legal exec Vijaya Gadde would otherwise be contractually due.
It’s a big bill if Musk has to pay up: anywhere up to $60 million, according to reports. On the flip side, dragging out that liability through the courts could also be costly. SlashGear spoke to a legal expert to figure out just what Musk’s game-plan might be.
“This all boils down to a contract dispute,” attorney Ron Zambrano, the employment litigation chair at Los Angeles-based West Coast Trial Lawyers, told SlashGear. “Are the fired executives entitled to their severances under their respective contracts because the contention by Musk that they were fired for cause is either made in bad faith or completely baseless? Or did these executives do things that could be viewed as violating their employment contracts? If they did, then Musk would have grounds to fire them for cause.
