Previous Twitter executives, consisting of previous CEO Parag Agrawal, are advising a court to open discovery in a disagreement over severance and other advantages they declare they were wrongfully rejected after Elon Musk took control of Twitter in 2022.

According to the previous executives, they’ve been obstructed for 7 months from accessing essential files showing they’re owed approximately $200 million under severance contracts that they state Musk willfully attempted to prevent paying in retaliation for executives requiring him to close the Twitter offer. And now, as X’s worth tanks lower than ever– supposedly worth 80 percent less than when Musk purchased it– the ex-Twitter leaders fear their severance declares “may be compromised” by Musk’s supposed “mismanagement of X,” their court filing stated.

The capacity for X’s earnings loss to effect severance declares appears to surpass simply the previous Twitter executives’ disagreement. According to their problem, “there are also thousands of non-executive former employees whom Musk terminated and is now refusing to pay severance and other benefits” and who have “sued in droves.”

In a few of these other severance fits, executives declared in their movement to open discovery, X seems running more transparently, enabling discovery to continue beyond what has actually been possible in the executives’ match.

Musk supposedly has “special ire” for Agrawal and other executives who assisted press through the Twitter buyout that he attempted to twitch out of, executives declared. And relatively due to the fact that of his supposed anger, X has “only narrowed the discovery” since the court authorized a stay pending a judgment on X’s movement to drop among the executives’ 5 claims. According to the executives, the court just authorized the stay of discovery due to the fact that it was anticipating to rule on the movement to dismiss rapidly, however after a hearing on that matter was abandoned, the stay has actually stayed, assisting X’s supposed objective to lengthen the lawsuits.

To get the lawsuits back on track for a faster resolution before Musk runs X into the ground, the executives on Thursday asked the court to authorize discovery on all claims other than the claim contested in the movement to dismiss.

“Discovery on those topics is inevitable, and there is no reason to further delay,” the executives argued.

The executives have actually asked for that the court open discovery at a hearing set up for November 15 to avoid more hold-ups that they fear might hurt their severance claims.

Neither X nor a legal representative for the previous Twitter executives, David Anderson, might right away be grabbed remark.

X’s battle to prevent severance payments

In their problem, the previous Twitter executives– consisting of Agrawal along with previous Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, previous Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and previous basic counsel Sean Edgett– declared that Musk prepared to reject their severance to make them spend for additional expenses that they authorized that clinched the Twitter offer.

They declared that Musk informed his main biographer, Walter Isaacson, that he would “hunt every single one of” them “till the day they die,” promising “a lifetime of revenge.” Musk apparently even “bragged” to Isaacson about “specifically how he planned to cheat Twitter’s executives out of their severance benefits in order to save himself $200 million.”

Under their severance contracts, the executives might just be rejected advantages if ended for “cause” under particular conditions, they stated, none of which supposedly used to their abrupt shootings the 2nd the merger contract was signed.

“‘Cause’ under the severance plans is limited to extremely narrow circumstances, such as being convicted of a felony or committing ‘gross negligence’ or ‘willful misconduct,'” their grievance kept in mind.

Musk tried to “manufacture” “ever-changing theories of cause,” they declared, partially by declaring that “success” charges paid to the law practice that beat Musk’s match trying to go back on the offer made up “gross negligence” or “willful misconduct.”

According to Musk’s movement to dismiss, the previous executives attempted to “saddle Twitter, and by extension the many investors who acquired it, with exorbitant legal expenses by forcing approximately $100 million in gratuitous payments to certain law firms in the final hours before the Twitter acquisition closed.” Musk had a substantial issue with this, the movement to dismiss stated, due to the fact that the charges were paid in spite of his objections.

Musk considered it “gross negligence” or “willful misconduct” that the executives presumably paid retention bonus offers that Musk likewise opposed. And maybe much more egregiously, they permitted brand-new staff members to leap onto severance strategies soon before the acquisition, which “generally” increased the “severance benefits available to these individuals by more than $50 million dollars,” Musk’s movement to dismiss stated.

Musk was especially irritated by the addition of one staff member who supposedly “already decided to terminate and another who was allowed to add herself to one of the Plans—a naked conflict of interest that increased her potential compensation by approximately $15 million.”

Previous Twitter executives stated they sought advice from with the board to authorize the law company charges, safeguarding their company choices as “in the best interest of the company,” not “Musk’s whims.”

“On the morning” Musk got Twitter, “the Company’s full Board met,” the executives’ grievance stated. “One of the directors noted that it was the largest stockholder value creation by a legal team that he had ever seen. The full Board deliberated and decided to approve the fees.”

Even more, they explained, “the lion’s share” of those legal charges “was necessitated only by Musk’s improper refusal to close a transaction to which he was contractually bound.”

“If Musk felt that the attorneys’ fees payments, or any other payments, were improper, his remedy was to seek to terminate the deal—not to withhold executives’ severance payments,” their grievance stated.

Compensation or reinstatement might be looked for

To require Musk’s hand, executives have actually been asking X to share files, consisting of files they either produced or gotten while exercising the Twitter buyout. X has actually postponed production– often oddly declaring that files are personal even when executives authored the files or they’ve been openly submitted in other severance conflicts, executives declared.

Executives have actually called Musk’s rejection of severance “a pointless effort that would not withstand legal scrutiny,” So far discovery in their suit has not even technically started. While X has actually turned over insufficient submissions from its administrative procedure rejecting the severance claims, sometimes, X has “entirely refused” to produce files, they declared.