“This is false”: Elon Musk on layoffs at Twitter to avoid payouts

The New York Times reported last week that Musk has ordered job cuts across the company, with some teams to be trimmed more than others and that layoffs would take place before November 1 date, when employees were scheduled to receive stock grants as part of their compensation.

Elon Musk has already fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde on completion of a high-profile $44 billion buyout of the social media platform on Thursday, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

He had accused them of misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform. According to research firm Equilar, the executives stood to receive separation payouts totaling some $122 million. According to the reports, Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal and Vijaya Gadde are poised to collect more than $100 million in severance and payouts of previously granted equity awards.

Citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, The Information reported that Elon Musk terminated four top Twitter executives, including Agrawal and Segal “for cause,” in an apparent effort to avoid severance pay and unvested stock awards.

In a tweet on Saturday LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield said Musk fired top Twitter execs “for cause,” preventing their unvested stock from vesting as part of a change of control.

Director of research at Equilar Courtney Yu told Reuters on Friday that the fired executives “should be getting these (severance) payments unless Elon Musk had cause for termination, with cause in these cases usually being that they broke the law or violated company policy.”

(With inputs from Reuters)