Laid-off Twitter workers feared meager severance deals. Elon Musk just set the bar even lower
LA TimesAfter months of waiting, hundreds of Twitter employees laid off by Elon Musk in early November received their separation agreements by email Saturday morning. The agreements offered one month of severance pay, but with a major catch — employees must sign away their right to ever sue the company, assist anyone in a legal case against the company unless required by law, or speak negatively about Twitter, its management or Elon Musk. “We don’t want to give them any free passes on anything.” Lisa Bloom, a lawyer who already has filed arbitration claims against Musk on behalf of several laid-off employees, called the terms in the separation agreement “pretty disturbing.” Not only are former employees barred from voluntarily assisting in legal cases against the company, they also must assist and cooperate with Twitter in any kind of investigation or lawsuit against the company. Liss-Riordan said her firm filed an additional 100 arbitration claims against Twitter on Monday, bringing the total to 300, with many workers reaching out since the separation agreements were sent out. The former engineering manager said some other ousted Twitter employees were able to confirm with what remains of Twitter’s HR department that the emails were legitimate.