Billionaire Elon Musk and his social media company X have reached a tentative settlement with former employees who sued for $500 million (£373m) in severance pay.
In a court filing on Wednesday, both parties confirmed the agreement in principle and asked the US appeals court in San Francisco to postpone an upcoming hearing to finalize the paperwork.
The lawsuit, led by ex-Twitter employee Courtney McMillian, claims that roughly 6,000 workers were denied benefits under the company’s severance plan after Musk took over the platform, then known as Twitter, in 2022. More than half the workforce was laid off as part of a sweeping cost-cutting drive.
According to the complaint, dismissed staff were entitled to as much as six months of salary and benefits, but most received no more than one month’s pay, while some got nothing. Details of the settlement have not yet been disclosed and will require court approval.
The mass layoffs gutted Twitter’s trust and safety, human rights, and media teams, and were among the first in a wave of retrenchments across the tech industry. Companies such as Meta, Google, and Microsoft also shed tens of thousands of jobs after aggressive hiring during the Covid-19 digital boom.
