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.

18 points
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Couldnt happen to a nicer dbag

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19 points

he couldn’t care less, he’s worth 95 Billion more now than when he purchased Twitter, the cruelty is the point

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5 points

What’s that come out to, around? 4 weeks pay per employee?

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-1 points

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.

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6 points

That didn’t answer the question

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-7 points
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Considering that number isn’t the amount of severance pay, it kinda did.

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5 points

That’s the penalties, not the amount owed to the employees.

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-4 points

Exactly.

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3 points

I could be mistaken, but I think the severance was three months when he bought the company.

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2 points

So 12 weeks? That’s a big chunk of change. Not much to him, though.

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3 points

Yeah, you’d think so. But apparently it is since he hasn’t paid anyone.

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6 points

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.

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9 points

I am gyessing that engineers at Twitter were probably making around $150k per year, give or take.

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7 points
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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.

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1 point

80k/year*.25year*1500 = $30m, where does the 120m come from?

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1 point

1500 = 6000 employees multiplied by 0.25 already. No need to multiply with .25 again.

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2 points

$80k/year*.25year*2200 = $44m in this case, though like you said your salary estimate is probably low

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16 points
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Smart. Flush money down the toilet trying to impersonate Trump by not paying your bills. Maybe he should run for president.

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18 points

Thankfully he can’t.

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-2 points

Tell that to the Canadian, Ted Cruz.

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17 points

As unfortunate as it is, he is still a natural citizen thanks to who his parents are.

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49 points

I haven’t yet seen an article where a reporter totals up the numbers and associated dollar amounts associated with Musk’s mismanagement. In terms of general classes - and I’m just going off the top of my head here - we’re looking at (including only the twitter related ones):

  1. Failure to pay agreed upon payouts for fired employees
  2. Age discriminatory termination lawsuits
  3. Violation of employment contracts re: return to work and other conditions
  4. Failure to pay rents and infrastructure fees
  5. Failure to moderate content according to legally required regulations
  6. Allocation of TSLA employees to work at Twitter, a different company with different shareholders, thus robbing Peter to pay Paul on investors’ dimes

There were also potential suits over mass terminations contrary to state and national laws, but I haven’t heard as much about those recently.

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17 points

In the event that Twitter files for bankruptcy, would it partially shield them from all that debt? Yeah, it’s a dirty play and would totally expect Elon to do it if he could.

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3 points

Imagine the headlines. World’s richest man files for bankruptcy.

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3 points

That’s the funny part, he won’t. It’s Twitter that will as it is a separate entity.

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5 points
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its so much worse than just that. there are so many financial mechanisms to avoid liability its not even funny. most of the unwashed are unfamiliar with them because they are specifically written to keep rich people rich.

money flows to the top, accountability… not so much. and that is 100% the design.

the twist here is a callous, idiotic billionaire using this lack of responsibility for his own enjoyment. he will never, ever personally suffer for any of the harm caused to all humans affected by his terrible business practices. he is shielded by money, or what we call money these days.

twitter will cost him billions in personal funds when it goes under, and it will not affect him at all.

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121 points

You guys are failing to see that this was a simple misunderstanding.

Musk was told he needed to pay severance to all the ex employees, but he was confused why he was paying severance to “X employees” if they were still employed, so he simply didn’t.

It’s an easy mistake. Anyone could’ve done it.

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13 points

Hence the rename from Twitter – more five-dimensional chess from that crafty bastard.

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6 points

Ah, the old Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal gambit.

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