Elon Musk just agreed to settle a massive $128 million lawsuit with four top Twitter executives he fired after acquiring the company in 2022. The deal comes with mysterious conditions that must be met by October 31st, or the legal battle resumes. This marks another expensive cleanup from Musk's chaotic Twitter takeover.
Elon Musk's legal troubles from his Twitter acquisition just got a lot more expensive. The billionaire has agreed to settle with four top executives he fired immediately after closing the $44 billion deal in 2022, ending a bitter lawsuit over more than $128 million in unpaid severance.
Court documents filed in the US Northern District Court of California reveal that former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, and general counsel Sean Edgett have reached an undisclosed settlement with Musk and X. But there's a catch - the deal hinges on "certain conditions" being met in the near term, though the filing doesn't specify what those are.
The lawsuit, filed in March 2024, painted a damning picture of Musk's acquisition strategy. The executives accused him of deliberately closing the deal early to "cheat" them out of $200 million before their stock options vested the following day. The complaint cited explosive quotes from Walter Isaacson's biography, where Musk allegedly said closing a day early would create a "two-hundred-million differential in the cookie jar" and vowed to "hunt every single one of" Twitter's executives "till the day they die."
If Musk fails to meet the mysterious settlement conditions, the lawsuit will resume on October 31st - putting him back in legal jeopardy just as he's dealing with ongoing scrutiny over X's financial performance and content moderation policies.
This settlement represents just the latest chapter in Musk's costly post-acquisition cleanup. In August, X quietly settled thousands of cases from former employees who sued over mass layoffs in 2022. Those workers claimed the company violated federal WARN Act requirements by failing to provide the mandatory 60 days advance notice before termination.
The timing of this settlement is particularly interesting given X's ongoing financial struggles. The platform has seen advertiser exodus and revenue drops since Musk's takeover, making these legal payouts even more painful. Industry analysts estimate Musk has now spent hundreds of millions settling various lawsuits stemming from his Twitter acquisition.
For the fired executives, this settlement likely represents vindication after nearly two years of legal battles. Agrawal, Segal, Gadde, and Edgett were among Twitter's highest-paid employees, with compensation packages that included significant stock options tied to the company's performance.
