A group of former Twitter executives who were fired by Elon Musk on his first day in charge are suing the company for more than $ 1 million over unpaid legal bills.
The lawsuit filed in Delaware Chancery Court,
on Monday April 10, is on behalf of the social media network’s former chief
executive Parag Agrawal, its former chief financial officer Ned Segal and
former head of legal and policy Vijaya Gadde.
They
spent more than $1million in personal legal bills related to government
investigations, including by the Department of Justice, inquiries by the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and shareholder lawsuits.
The trio, who were fired by Musk when he
bought Twitter for $44billion in October, racked up ‘significant expenses’
related to their former positions.
They claim the company has ‘refused to
acknowledge its obligations and to remit payment of any invoices’.
The justice department contacted counsel for
Agrawal and Segal in 2022 ‘regarding certain investigations related to the
company’, according to the lawsuit.
But the nature of the probe and whether it is
still active is unknown.
The pair also incurred legal expenses
responding to inquiries by the SEC in 2022, the lawsuit states.
The SEC has been investigating whether Musk breached
securities regulations by failing to make timely disclosures when he bought a
9.2 per cent stake in Twitter early last year.
Agrawal and Segal were contacted by federal
authorities in July while still in their roles at Twitter and in September, the
SEC asked Agrawal to preserve documents.
They are also named with Gadde in a
shareholder lawsuit and she was forced to pay legal fees related to her
February testimony in front of the House Committee on Oversight and
Accountability.
The lawsuit said Twitter’s corporate bylaws
and its contracts with former executives require it to pay their legal fees in
matters related to the social media company.And the former executives notified
Twitter of the expenses incurred more than two months ago but they are yet to
be reimbursed.
Aaron Zamost, a spokesman for Segal and
Gadde, said: ‘Once again, Twitter has failed to honor its contractual
obligations to pay its bills.’
Musk has aggressively cut costs relating to
Twitter since he took over and fired more than 75 per cent of its 7,500
employees.
He terminated Agrawal, Segal and Gadde ‘for
cause’ last year which voided the large severance payouts they were expected to
get, which would have amounted to nearly $60million for Agrawal.
Post a Comment