Elon Musk’s X Reaches Tentative Settlement in $500 Million Severance Lawsuit Filed by Former Twitter Employees
Elon Musk’s social media company, X (formerly Twitter), has agreed to a tentative settlement in a major lawsuit brought by former employees who claimed they were owed $500 million in severance pay after being laid off.
According to a court filing on Wednesday, attorneys for X Corp and the fired workers informed a U.S. appeals court that they had reached a preliminary agreement. The two sides requested a delay in upcoming court proceedings while they finalize the terms of the deal. The exact financial details of the settlement have not been made public.
The lawsuit stems from Musk’s mass layoffs in late 2022, when he took over Twitter and rebranded it as X. Roughly 6,000 employees were let go as part of aggressive cost-cutting measures. Multiple lawsuits followed, with former staff members arguing they were not given the severance pay they were contractually promised. Several legal cases are still pending in California and Delaware courts.
This particular case was filed by former Twitter employees Courtney McMillian and Ronald Cooper. McMillian had served as the company’s Head of Total Rewards, overseeing employee benefits, while Cooper worked as an operations manager.
They alleged that under a 2019 severance plan, most employees were entitled to at least two months of base salary plus an additional week for every full year of service. Senior employees like McMillian were supposed to receive six months of severance pay.
Instead, the lawsuit claimed, many laid-off workers received just one month of pay—or nothing at all.
Although a San Francisco judge dismissed the case in July 2024, McMillian and Cooper appealed the decision. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had been scheduled to hear arguments in September before this new settlement paused those proceedings.
This settlement, if finalized, would bring resolution to one of the most high-profile legal battles Musk’s X Corp has faced since acquiring the platform.