Musk's X reaches tentative settlement with former Twitter workers in $500 million lawsuit

Key Points

• Elon Musk's X has reached a tentative settlement with former Twitter employees who sued for $500 million in severance pay.
• The settlement terms remain undisclosed, but a court hearing set for September 17 has been postponed to finalize the agreement.
• The lawsuit was initiated by former employees Courtney McMillan and Ronald Cooper, claiming the company failed to pay severance owed to them and other fired workers.
• This legal situation follows Musk's drastic workforce reductions at Twitter, which included thousands of layoffs in various departments.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elon Musk's X has reached a tentative settlement with former employees of the company then known as Twitter who'd sued for $500 million in severance pay.

The parties disclosed the deal in a Wednesday court filing asking for a scheduled Sept. 17 hearing in the case to be postponed. The San Francisco federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to postpone the hearing so that both sides could finalize the settlement agreement.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The proposed class action lawsuit by former Twitter employees Courtney McMillan and Ronald Cooper, who said the company failed to pay them and other fired workers severance they were owed.

Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and let thousands of employees go, eliminating entire teams dedicated to trust and safety, human rights and making the site accessible to people with disabilities. Other lawsuits, including one filed by Twitter executives including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are still pending.

The billionaire's approach to gutting Twitter’s workforce served as a template for his months-long leadership of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it cut tens of thousands of federal workers earlier this year.

An email announcing a “deferred resignation offer” to federal workers, promising pay through September without having to work, was titled “Fork in the Road,” echoing a similar email Musk sent to the Twitter workforce in 2022.

Musk’s drawn-out legal battles with more than 2,000 former Twitter workers were also a precursor to the court battles the Trump administration is now fighting over federal downsizing, though the circumstances are different.