Elon Musk’s alleged penchant for not paying bills is catching up with him. In the wake of numerous lawsuits claiming the world’s richest man failed to pay severance owed to many of the 6,000 employees he fired after acquiring Twitter. On Monday, CNBC reported that the tech company now known as X is facing some 2,200 arbitration cases filed by ex-employees, which come with $3.5 million in required fees—an amount that doesn’t even include the actual severance owed to those Musk let go.
In October, shortly after taking Twitter’s reins, Musk laid off more than half of its employees, promising most at least two months’ salary plus a week’s pay for every year they’d worked at the firm. Thousands claim that they haven’t received a single dime, and ex-employees have since filed several lawsuits seeking their promised benefits.
Elon Musk’s alleged penchant for not paying bills is catching up with him.
Citation required. It’s not having any effect on him personally, the businesses are the ones which are affected. And when you’re not depending on your businesses to eat and live, there are zero consequences.
They’re all his shitty decisions, but as usual, he doesn’t pay for it. The profits are privatised while the losses are socialised. And I’m pretty sick of the media counting eggs before they hatch, because they usually don’t hatch at all.
If I lit your house on fire you wouldn’t spend much time arguing that it doesn’t hurt you directly, just your personal property
That would be a key difference between personal property and private property. Not that I own my own house.
Even if Musk was at personal risk of losing the entire amount of money Twitter cost, which he isn’t, it would have no effect on his ability to live or conduct business.
Elon Musk’s alleged penchant for not paying bills is catching up with him.
Citation required.
Not paying rent for Boulder office:
https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/14/twitter-is-being-evicted-from-its-boulder-office-over-unpaid-rent/
Not paying rent for San Francisco office:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/twitters-landlord-sues-for-millions-in-unpaid-rent-at-firms-us-headquarters/
Not paying consulting firm:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/twitter-hired-experts-for-case-against-musk-now-musk-wont-pay-them-lawsuit-says/
Not paying interest on loan:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/01/looming-twitter-interest-payment-leaves-elon-musk-with-unpalatable-options/
Yes, the business he bought (with not only his money) has been sued and evicted. The only time Musk has personally ever been on the hook was when he tried to wriggle out of buying said business, and the business sued him personally. Otherwise, he can walk away consequence-free from everything else.
Yes, the business he bought (with not only his money)
That’s literally part of the problem. He hadn’t paid interest on the loan he took out to buy Twitter.
But also, he was CEO when these things all happened. He is the one who made the decisions not to make payments toward rent on two of his offices, toward his loan, or toward his consulting firm. I’m not sure what sort of mental gymnastics you’re doing to say that he isn’t responsible for these things. Twitter wasn’t having those problems pre-Musk, and is only having these problems as a direct result of Musk’s decision-making. That’s kinda part of what being a CEO entails.
Not sure why one would ask for citations and then dismiss them.
Couldnt happen to a nicer dbag
What’s that come out to, around? 4 weeks pay per employee?
Literally the post:
… X is facing some 2,200 arbitration cases filed by ex-employees, which come with $3.5 million in required fees-an amount that doesn’t even include the actual severance owed to those Musk let go.
Well, minimum 2 months per employee plus the 4 weeks. Let’s figure an average salary of $80k. 6000 employees with an average tenure of 4 years. Let’s go ahead and round that to 3 months salary. So he’s paying the equivalent of 1500 employee’s average salary. That works out to about $120m.
I think my salary estimate is low there, and I have no idea what the tenure of the employees would be. Either way, not a small sum for a company that’s barely treading water.
I am gyessing that engineers at Twitter were probably making around $150k per year, give or take.
I would guess 150-250k.
Twitter was known for lower pay (and a lower pace) than the big names, but it’s still the bay area.
I could be mistaken, but I think the severance was three months when he bought the company.
Waiting like this was smart. Unfortunately.
Options:
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Stall as long as possible. Twitter makes a bunch of money. Have money to pay severances. All good.
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Twitter fails anyways. No money to pay anybody but had as long a runway as possible. Bankrupt and a financial guy nominated by a judge sorts it out.
So was the rebranding of Twitter to X just so Elon could say “U fuckin’ wot m8? This company is X, and your employment contract is with Twitter, so it looks like you were never employed here.”?
Fortunately that doesn’t work.
Even if Musk totally shut down Twitter, then opened an identical platform named X, the contracts Twitter held are still enforceable under the law.
There might be stipulations in the contracts where severance isn’t payable if the company fails, but if I remember correctly, this severance is something mandated by state law, and not just a contractual perk.
So bottom line, Musk is liable unless his lawyers are able to worm their way into a settlement.
