Elon Musk Settles with Fired Twitter Executives for Undisclosed Sum

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has agreed to a confidential settlement with four former Twitter executives who sued him over their abrupt dismissal on the day he took control of the company, now rebranded as X, according to a recent court filing.

The settlement concludes a long-standing legal battle that began after Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October 2022. Upon finalizing the purchase, he immediately terminated several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and top legal officers Vijaya Gadde and Sean Edgett. Musk accused them of “gross negligence” and “willful misconduct” at the time of their firing.

In March 2024, the four former executives filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco, seeking $128 million in compensation. They alleged that Musk had dismissed them without valid cause and later attempted to create false justifications to avoid paying their severance packages and stock-based compensation.

The lawsuit also claimed Musk rushed the closing of the Twitter deal by a single day to prevent the executives from receiving $200 million in stock options that were due the following morning.

According to the provisional agreement submitted to the court, the settlement amount remains undisclosed and is contingent upon several conditions. Should these conditions fail to be met, the case will resume on October 31.

The dispute was one of many legal challenges following Musk’s chaotic takeover of the social media platform. In the months after acquiring Twitter, the billionaire laid off nearly two-thirds of the workforce, sparking multiple lawsuits from former employees, contractors, and vendors over unpaid severance and alleged breaches of employment contracts.

Earlier this year, Musk and X Corp. agreed to settle a class action lawsuit involving thousands of employees seeking unpaid compensation. The move signaled an attempt to resolve a wave of legal and financial disputes stemming from the controversial restructuring of the platform.

In March 2025, Musk transferred ownership of X to his artificial intelligence startup xAI, aligning the company more closely with his broader ambitions in the AI sector. While details of the latest settlement remain confidential, it represents another chapter in Musk’s turbulent management of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.