Elon Musk and his social media company, X (formerly Twitter), have reached a settlement with four former top executives over a dispute involving $128 million in severance pay.
The group—former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and General Counsel Sean Edgett—sued the company in 2024. They alleged Musk withheld their severance as an act of “revenge” after being forced to follow through on his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in 2022, a deal he had initially tried to exit.
The executives were fired within hours of Musk taking control of the company in October 2022. Their lawsuit claimed the timing was strategic, as their severance packages and vested stock—worth over $128 million collectively—were due just a day later.
The lawsuit referenced Walter Isaacson’s 2023 authorized biography of Musk, which alleged that Musk purposely aimed to deny the executives their severance. According to the book, Musk believed Twitter’s leadership had misled him and rushed to finalize the sale so he could terminate the executives “for cause”—a move that would invalidate their severance claims. The lawsuit argued that this justification was unfounded.
A court order filed October 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California confirmed the settlement. While the specific terms remain confidential, the order paused upcoming depositions—including Musk’s—so the parties could finalize the agreement.
This marks the second major severance-related settlement for X this year. In August, the company resolved a separate case involving former employees who also claimed they were owed hundreds of millions in unpaid severance.
