As Elon Is Asking For A $56 Billion Bonus, He’s Demanding Fired Twitter Employees Pay Back Severance
from the forgot-to-carry-the-one dept
A suggestion for Elon: next time you take over a company and decide to immediately fire three-quarters of the staff, maybe hold onto a few of the payroll staff before you do.
It might help you avoid some mistakes.
You may recall that early on Musk laid off well over half of the staff at Twitter and then demanded the remaining folks pledge to be “extremely hardcore.” This led to basically the entire payroll team leaving the company. Since then, there have been all sorts of disputes about how much severance the company owed former employees, with a few ongoing lawsuits.
But, down in Australia, it appears that Team Elon is demanding a bunch of laid off ExTwitter employees pay back the severance they received because Twitter accidentally flubbed the conversion between the US dollar and the Australian dollar. I mean, this is pretty embarrassing for the guy who pretends to be a rocket scientist supergenius:
Elon Musk’s social media platform X is threatening to take some former Australian employees to court, demanding they return entitlements it claims were overpaid to them after it bungled the currency conversion from US to Australian dollars on the payments.
Acknowledging its “conversion error”, the platform formerly known as Twitter is asking former employees, some sacked more than 18 months ago, to repay amounts of up to $70,000 in some cases.
But, this comes across as even dumber because it’s happening at the exact same time that Musk is asking Tesla shareholders to re-approve his ~$56 billion compensation package, which a judge threw out earlier this year. Dude, suck it up and pay the $70k.
And yes, it does seem clear that Twitter made a mistake here, though it’s entirely on the company and whatever employees were still around for not double-checking how to convert things properly.
Still, the company is threatening legal action if people don’t pay back the money:
The currency conversion errors made by X when employees were paid their entitlements once they were made redundant had led to overpayments of between $1500 and $70,000. According to one account, X paid out the share entitlements at a conversion rate 2.5 times the value of the shares.
Separate correspondence seen by this masthead from representatives for X told former staff members if they failed to comply with the demand set out, Twitter Australia Holdings Pty Ltd reserved the right to commence proceedings for the recovery of the overpayment “together with interest”.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that, so far, no one has agreed to send the money back. I don’t know how the laws in Australia work concerning overpayment and repayment, but, honestly, good for those employees.
Filed Under: australia, conversion, elon musk, layoffs, severance
Companies: twitter, x
Comments on “As Elon Is Asking For A $56 Billion Bonus, He’s Demanding Fired Twitter Employees Pay Back Severance”
Snidely Whiplash FTW
This guy becomes more of a cartoon villain with every article I see about him.
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Who? Elmo, RFK Jr., or Trump?
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The Stooges
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Why not both?
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Both? Dude, can you count? AC listed three names, not two.
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Ah, so they did, my mind must have just tossed those they were listing into the ‘idiot’ category and missed one of them as a result.
…and founded an online bank: X.com, which became PayPal after firing Musk… who was in Australia at the time of the firing. You can’t make this stuff up. (Why would you? That would waste everybody’s time.)
Frankly:
I think the employees in question could hardly be blamed if they chose to play this extremely hardcore.
Come on, this guy needs money to build a better world, so give all the cash!
He seems such a good guy that I’m even ready to contribute with my own modest resources. I’ve got a brand new paper roll he could use to swipe his mouth.
No problems my man. Just thanks me when you’ve actually made the world a better place. And please keep the paper roll.
Lol, even if he’s right about overpayments, he’s so wrong.
I’m not sure what Australian law is, but someone even remotely connected to reality would take this as a natural loss and continue with the day that “earns” him more than these guys before the sun goes down.
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Even if hes right hes likly wrong, it costs at least 10k to file a lawsuit, Any attempt to take this to court will cost Elon more then the amount he recovers.
He wants to create fear in the former staff so they pay it back, but most will laugh till they get a court summons.
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Speaking as a sumo come loud graduate of Harvard Law and Engineering, they should all have to work off the extra sniffing Elon’s butt.
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Still can’t spell summa cum laude correctly, I see. How to tell us you’re lying about your qualifications without admitting you’re lying about your qualifications?*
*If you actually had graduated summa cum laude from anywhere, the phrase would be on your diploma for you to doublecheck its spelling.
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I graduated straight A from the Marine Core with a degree in Kicking Ass. And I learned there that obvious parody is obvious.
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I’m Here To Kick Ass And Chew Bubblegum
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This legitimately checks out.
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And if someone is parodying an actual qualification, odds are good they don’t have that qualification. You were saying, Bratty Matty simp?
'Pay their legal fees and then get out of my court.'
Hopefully if he does drag one of those poor sods to court the judge(s) involved point out that currency converter programs are not hard to find or use and that if Elon couldn’t be bothered it’s not on the former employees to do his grade school math homework for him before laughing him out of court.
Except in my probably flawed understanding of contract law…
Twatter made an offer of monies, that offer was accepted to settle possible claims & end their agreement.
Twatter willingly offered the wrong amount, I don’t see how the former employees are at fault in any way.
Courts aren’t usually in the business of fixing idiots mistakes, Twatter fscked up Twatter needs to cope.
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Lets be fair here, Muskie is mentally not the age of consent, obviously he can’t be held accountable to his contract, right?
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Bl@sphemer.
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So what?
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I’m sorry, but Elon Musk is not my god. Nor, do I think, is he Mike’s.
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E@t @ d1ck br0
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No thanks. One Bushtucker Trial on I’m a Celebrity… was more than enough for me.
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Oh, thank God* someone actually came out and said it! /s
*Actual blasphemy (sorry, God).
So what? Elon can demand whatever he wants.
He can even demand that Jhon Hymen wear a kitty cage.
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He can demand whatever he wants. Doesn’t mean he’ll get it, nor that what he’s asking is based on reality or common sense.
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Oh fuck, can he? Can he finally convince Hyman Rosen that they’re a femboy? Hnnnnng –
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We don’t want him.
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Love wins.
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“…pretty embarrassing for the guy who pretends to be a rocket scientist supergenius…”
I thought everything was about execution?
He has revolutionized rockets and how we use them.
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And I suppose he also single-handedly revolutionized vehicular travel with a “truck” that looks like it was designed in a 40-year-old Macintosh game and has had more issues since launch than a Newsweek archive. 🙄
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…That’s a DOS game running in DOSBox on a Mac.
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I don’t recall saying anything about a truck…
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Is this the whataboutism you pricks like to complain about?
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No, it isn’t. Since it’s still about Elon Musk—even if it’s something else he has done besides what you mentioned—and it’s in response to something you said that’s meant to be complimentary, it’s not a whataboutism.
A whataboutism is where you deflect criticism by pointing to something bad about or done by someone else.
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Yeah but .. what about her emails???
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Wrong again dear:the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue
Trucks are not rocket ships
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He’s done no such thing. Elon is far, FAR too stupid to understand even the basics of rocket propulsion, orbital mechanics, and spacecraft engineering.
Signed,
someone who got A’s in those classes (real A’s, not fake ones paid for by daddy’s money)
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“He has revolutionized rockets and how we use them.”
Not sure I see what you are trying to say here.
revolutionized? … please. State exactly what he did that was revolutionary. In addition, include what the word revolution means to you.
How do we use rockets? How was anything about this use changed by elon?
It’s New And Improved!!! Old advertising crapola still smells bad.
Revolutionary would describe a method of achieving orbit without riding a controlled explosion.
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Hey
The revolutionary part was dropping the cost of launch by so much, resulting in an accelerated pace of industry, something not achieved in the decades before.
Revolution doesn’t mean just rolling over, or even “spin” unless it does.
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Oh, so “having nough money to break into what could be considered a duopoly created by the militray-industrial complex” is the revolution, then?
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“The revolutionary part was dropping the cost of launch by so much”
The Faster, Better, Cheaper mantra is not new to that industry. When corners are cut, failures happen.
In addition, when the finance folks are put in charge of things they do not understand, failures happen.
There is nothing revolutionary about cutting corners .. unless it is rounded corners – lol
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See: basically everything.
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See also: Boeing.
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I’m waiting for when Boeing’s execs try to “cut corners” wrt their hired killers.
Saying in Oz
We have a saying down here in Oz: Yeah, nah.
Basically means ‘not in this lifetime, bro’.
This is totally a ‘yeah, nah’ request.
You have to hand it to Elon Musk. He’s clearly the greatest con man in the history of grift. He’s th P.T. Barnum of the Information Age. Let the circus begin!
Elon tries to be banished to Mars
screw him
Oh, thank God* someone actually came out and said it! /s
*Actual blasphemy (sorry, God).
Elmo’s next step.
Just as illegal, no?
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Give them nothing, they were doing nothing, they get nothing. Sounds like a lot of people here disagree, I call them libs because they have a 99 percent certainty they are. Prob from California or new york, prob either a zoomer that thinks thieves shouldn’t be shot for breaking and entering or so old that their opinions don’t matter in the grand scheme of things because the world left them behind years ago and they refuse to learn the new ways that things are. No I don’t follow trump or like him and equally don’t like biden, neither one of them should lead the free world, one has some kind of degenerative disorder and the other is narcissistic, im neither a red or blue, I’m an advocate for better than the current world no matter what flag you want to get behind.
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At least one of us isn’t American or culturally liberal.
And yet you spew the same bullshit the Insurrection Scum who flock under Trump do.
If you truly want to better the world, educate yourself or do the right thing.
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The real question, which all of you Elon-haters fail to reckon with, is why should ex-Twitter employees (who are clearly useless parasites anyway, since the site runs better than ever) be able to defraud their former employer? Profiting from a banking error is still theft of property lost by mistake.
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FYI, none of us actually hate Elmo. In fact, we love him for all the entertainment he provides to us daily and for free.
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Note how you fail to reckon with the question, loser.
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Your kind is going to be fucking emasculated so women no longer have to walk the streets in fear, ever again. And before you ask, yes, that includes transwomen. Because your definitions of masculinity have ruined us as a species and civilization, men who have seen the light recognize the toxicity inherent in their bodies. And yet somehow they’re a thousand times the man your kind will ever be.
You thought one felony conviction was bad, your ass isn’t prepared for what’s coming next for you and your hero.
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Note how you fail to comprehend what you read, actual loser.
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Lol, you're malding
BTW, Tesla shareholders DID approve the payout, and you wrote an article pointing out the judge’s ruling was insane. He made a bet and he won, as did Tesla, and he should be paid for that.
Conversely, most of old Twitter sucked, and he fired them. Yeah, if a company overpays you it will ask you pay it back, that’s not new.
Musk does not work for you and is smarter than you, you walnut
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Keep clapping, seal.
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“Musk does not work for you and is smarter than you, you walnut”
Musk is a two bit ass clown and you know it loud mouth.
I think the collective response of these employees to Musk should be… 💩
contract
What the contract apparently says is that the employees are entitled to the value of some shares in the company. The shares are valued in US dollars, but the Australian employees were paid in Australian dollars. Twitter converted from US dollars to Australian dollars incorrectly. The contract does not specify the amount of the payment in Australian dollars. Twitter is therefore in compliance with the contract in demanding the return of the excess payment. That isn’t to say that demanding the return at this point is equitable – that’s another issue. This article is the only one I’ve found that explains exactly what happened: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/elon-musks-x-demands-repayment-from-former-australian-employees-over-currency-conversion-error/articleshow/111011492.cms
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Interesting and informative story. Thanks for linking to it.
Shocked to hear that the scumbag Aussie former Twitter employees have also stolen company property (laptops).
I hope all those fuckers face criminal liability. Musk rules.
Today I learned that Liam Nissan once called Elon Musk Sissy SpaceX
LOL