Twitter hit with $500 million lawsuit from former employees

Twitter allegedly owes $500 million in severance pay to laid-off employees according to a lawsuit filed against the company.

There have been a lot of changes to Twitter since Elon Musk acquired the company, including more than half of its employees being laid off for supposed cost-cutting measures.

One of those employees was Courtney McMillian, who had previously worked as the “head of total rewards,” overseeing Twitter’s employee benefits programs.

Now, McMillian is reportedly taking action against Musk and Twitter, filing a proposed class action lawsuit in the San Francisco federal court.

McMillian was laid off in January and has since claimed many employees were not properly paid according to a severance plan Twitter created in 2019.

The plan promised any laid-off workers two months of their base pay plus an additional one week of pay for each full year of service they gave. Senior employees were owed six months of their base pay if laid off, a title McMillian falls under.

But according to the lawsuit, Twitter only gave laid-off workers one month of severance pay at most, with many not receiving anything. This would be a violation of federal law regulating employee benefit plans.

And this isn’t the first time Twitter has been sued since Musk took over the company. In fact, there have already been lawsuits filed against Twitter for failing to pay severance, though these cases involved a breach of contract claim rather than the benefits law.

Another lawsuit accused Twitter of failing to pay owed bonuses to its remaining employees, a claim the company has stated lacks merit.

When Reuters requested Twitter to comment on this latest lawsuit against the company, they allegedly responded only with the poop emoji.

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