Musk Twitter lawsuit: Elon Musk beats $500 million severance lawsuit by fired Twitter workers

Elon Musk gained dismissal of a lawsuit claiming he refused to pay at the very least $500 million of severance to hundreds of Twitter workers he fired in mass layoffs after shopping for the social media firm now often known as X.

U.S. District Choose Trina Thompson in San Francisco dominated on Tuesday that the federal Worker Retirement Earnings Safety Act governing profit plans didn’t cowl the previous workers’ claims, and subsequently she lacked jurisdiction.

Legal professionals for the plaintiffs didn’t instantly reply to requests for touch upon Wednesday. Musk’s legal professionals didn’t instantly reply to related requests.

The case is certainly one of many accusing Musk of reneging on guarantees to former Twitter workers, together with former Chief Government Parag Agrawal, and distributors after shopping for the corporate for $44 billion in October 2022.

Musk additionally runs the electrical automobile firm Tesla, and is the world’s richest particular person, in accordance with Forbes journal.

In accordance with the criticism, Twitter’s 2019 severance plan known as for employees who stayed on after the buyout to obtain two or six months of pay, plus one week of pay for annually of employment, in the event that they had been laid off.

The plaintiffs Courtney McMillian, who oversaw Twitter’s compensation and advantages, and Ronald Cooper, an operations supervisor, stated Twitter as an alternative supplied fired workers only one month of pay as severance, with no advantages. Thompson stated ERISA did not apply to Twitter’s post-buyout plan as a result of there was no “ongoing administrative scheme” the place the corporate reviewed claims case-by-case, or supplied advantages similar to continued medical health insurance and out placement providers.

“There have been solely money funds promised,” she wrote.

The choose stated the plaintiffs can attempt amending their criticism, however just for claims not ruled by ERISA.

The case is McMillian et al v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court docket, Northern District of California, No. 23-03461.