Former senior executives of Twitter have initiated a lawsuit against Elon Musk and X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, asserting claims totaling over $128 million in unpaid severance payments. The lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, alleges that the executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal and other top officers, were terminated without cause on the day of Musk's completion of the Twitter acquisition in 2022. They contend that Musk fabricated reasons for their terminations to evade paying their severance, which they argue they are entitled to under their severance plans.

Following the acquisition, Musk undertook a significant restructuring effort, resulting in the dismissal of executives and roughly half of the employees. This lawsuit is just one among several legal battles against X, as cases have been brought forth by former employees and vendors, accusing the company of failing to fulfill severance and other financial obligations.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the former executives allege that Musk devised a plan to deny them their severance benefits by expediting the acquisition's completion and falsely citing "cause" for their terminations before they had the opportunity to resign and receive their entitlements. They maintain that Musk's true motivation for their terminations stems from his resentment over being compelled to finalize the acquisition and his subsequent reluctance to fulfill their severance obligations.

Musk has refrained from publicly addressing the lawsuit, but according to reports, he has engaged with specific posts on X concerning the legal claims, using emojis that seemingly mock and jest about the case.