Ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal sues Musk, billionaire responds with emoji

San Francisco: Indian-origin Parag Agrawal, former CEO of Twitter (now called X), and three other employees have sued Elon Musk for about $128 million in unpaid severance.

Agrawal, along with ex-chief financial officer Ned Segal, former Twitter head of legal and policy Vijaya Gadde and former Twitter General Counsel, Sean Edgett, have filed the lawsuit against the billionaire.

Musk on Tuesday reacted with just an emoji, when a follower posted: “Parag Agrawal is suing Elon Musk claiming that he did in fact get a lot done that week”.

The lawsuit claimed that the Tesla CEO showed “special ire” towards them by “publicly vowing to withhold their severance payments of around $200 million”, when he took over Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion.

“Under Musk’s control, Twitter has become a scofflaw, stiffing employees, landlords, vendors, and others. Musk doesn’t pay his bills, believes the rules don’t apply to him, and uses his wealth and power to run roughshod over anyone who disagrees with him,” read the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

In October 2022, Musk informed Agrawal, Gadde and Segal that their employment with the company was terminated.

According to reports, the three top executives had an exit package of more than $100 million when they left the company.

Agrawal was set to receive the largest payout at around $40 million, largely due “to the entirety of his shares vesting upon his firing”.