Elon Musk Reaches Settlement with Fired Twitter Executives Over $128 Million Severance Dispute

The agreement ends a long-running legal battle between Musk and former top Twitter leaders, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, who accused the billionaire of withholding millions in severance out of “revenge.”
Elon Musk and X (formerly known as Twitter) have reached a settlement with a group of former executives who accused the billionaire of refusing to pay $128 million in severance after his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform in 2022.

The executives — former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and former General Counsel Sean Edgett — filed a lawsuit in 2024 alleging Musk deliberately withheld their severance payments as a form of “revenge” for being forced to complete the acquisition.

All four executives were fired within hours of Musk taking control of the company in October 2022, a day before they were set to receive a combined $200 million in severance and vested stock options.

A recent court order filed on October 1 in the U.S. Northern District Court of California confirmed that both sides had reached a settlement, though the terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The order also postponed depositions — including Musk’s — that had been scheduled for later this month, giving the parties time to “meet conditions required under the settlement.”

The Verge first reported details of the court order, signaling an end to one of several legal disputes that have trailed Musk since his controversial Twitter acquisition.

The executives’ lawsuit referenced details from Elon Musk, the authorized biography by Walter Isaacson, published in 2023. Isaacson wrote that Musk sought to block the executives from receiving severance or vesting stock options “because of the price he was paying and his conviction that Twitter’s management had misled him.” According to the book, Musk expedited the sale’s closing so he could immediately terminate them “for cause” — a claim the lawsuit argued was unsubstantiated.

Neither Musk nor representatives for X or the former executives have commented publicly on the settlement.

This is not the first time Musk’s X has faced such claims. In August, the company settled a separate lawsuit from a different group of former employees who alleged they were owed hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid severance.

The settlement marks another step toward closing one of the lingering controversies from Musk’s tumultuous Twitter takeover — a saga that reshaped not just the platform but also global conversations on leadership, transparency, and accountability in tech.