Six former Massachusetts-based employees of Twitter sued the social media service — now called X — in federal court on Friday seeking larger severance payments following their dismissal under owner Elon Musk.
The six employees said they were promised that the company would abide by the severance policy in place before Musk bought the company for $44 billion in October 2022. Musk quickly cut 80 percent of the company’s workers without paying the promised severance, the group said in its seven-page lawsuit filed in US District Court in Boston.
The employees expected to “receive at least as favorable severance pay as they would have received prior to [Musk’s] purchase of the company,” the lawsuit said.
Under the prior policy, employees were entitled to two to six months of pay plus one additional week of pay per year of service, a bonus, and the cash value of any stock or options that would have vested within three to six months of termination, the lawsuit said. Instead, Twitter offered only one month of pay or less, the lawsuit said.
Ultimately, more than 80 percent of the company’s workers departed. Musk changed the name of the company to X in April 2023 and in March combined it with his artificial intelligence company, xAI.
Thousands of laid-off Twitter workers have sought additional severance through mandatory private arbitration proceedings, according to Boston attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who is representing many of the former workers. Four ex-workers won their claims in arbitration, Bloomberg reported in February. Arbitration decisions typically remain confidential.
The Massachusetts former workers, also represented by Liss-Riordan, initially filed arbitration claims, as well, in line with Twitter’s mandatory arbitration policy. But outside of California, Nevada, and Oregon, Twitter would not participate in arbitration, she said, leading to Friday’s lawsuit.
“Twitter refused to go forward with the arbitrations we filed in those states,” she said. “These people were promised repeatedly that Twitter would abide by its pre-acquisition severance policy. Musk reneged on that promise.”
X did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
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