Elon Musk settles $128m severance dispute with fired Twitter execs

In a significant development, Elon Musk and his social platform X (formerly Twitter) have reached a settlement with four top former executives over $128 million in severance that had been pending since Musk’s 2022 takeover of the platform.

The settlement, confirmed in a court order filed October 1 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, ends the high-profile lawsuit brought by former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and General Counsel Sean Edgett.

While the order does not disclose financial details, it pauses upcoming depositions, including Musk’s, as the parties fulfill settlement conditions.

The dispute dates back to October 2022, when Musk abruptly fired the executives within hours of taking control of Twitter, just one day before they were set to receive $200 million in severance and vested stock options.

The executives sued in 2024, alleging Musk withheld payments out of “revenge” for being forced to complete the $44 billion acquisition he had tried to abandon.

The lawsuit cited passages from Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography of Musk, which described the billionaire’s determination to prevent the executives from cashing out, believing they had “misled him” about the company’s state.

Musk allegedly expedited the sale’s closing to fire them “for cause,” a claim the executives argued was fabricated.

Notably, the development also marks Musk’s second major settlement with ex-Twitter employees in recent months.