When Elon Musk took over X, which was known then as Twitter, he sent an email to employees which they had to respond to within 24 hours. According to the email, they had to click on 'yes' to continue working in the company. The action taken by Musk and X, alongside its email to employees, were disputed by Ireland's Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), who recently ruled in favor of an Irish former Twitter employee and granted him $600,000.
The start of the Musk-era X was known for being chaotic as mass layoffs took place. These layoffs did not give former employees much of a heads-up notice. Many, unfortunately, ended up finding themselves immediately without a job.
Elon Musk's Twitter Lawsuit Awards Employee $600k for Termination
Ireland's RTÉ shared a new report claiming that the WRC has ruled against Elon Musk and X, which led to a former X senior executive being awarded $600,000. This amount must be paid by the company, according to the WRC. This involves the infamous email campaign in which employees had to respond within 24 hours or else they would no longer have a job within the social media company.
According to WRC's Michael MacNamee, the immediate termination of Gary Rooney should have been given to the executive in writing and not in the form of an email.
The WRC has claimed that what Musk and the then-Twitter did against Rooney and other former employees was unfair. Rooney was only given more than $25,000 as part of his severance pay, but the WRC ruled that he should be paid $600,000.
$220,000 of that amount constitutes to "future loss of earnings," according to Ars.
Musk's Infamous Unlawful Email Resignation Campaign
The whole issue stemmed from an email Elon musk sent to employees upon gaining control of the social media platform. The now-infamous email with the subject "A Fork in the Road" talked about Twitter 2.0's "extremely hardcore" workflow, one that would subject employees to longer hours in their shifts.
It was then followed by a form that asked employees to click "yes" to continue working for Twitter. If an employee did not click "yes" within 24 hours, the email claimed it would signify that the employee was resigning and would receive a three-month severance package.
Elon Musk and his X Layoffs
The purge that took place during the early months of Musk's ownership of the company did not just involve the notorious bots that have disrupted the platform. It also involved the mass layoffs of employees that came part of a massive restructuring effort within the company. Unfortunately, employees were not given enough time to prepare for the loss of employment.
In the monthh of November, weeks after completing his acquisition, Musk laid off 25% of the company's workforce. At that time, he said the move was done to help improve the company's cash flow.
However, the layoffs did not stop there. More employees and even high-ranking executives were let go in the months that followed. All were promised three months' worth of of severance pay. Because of these, a number of lawsuits have been filed against the X owner and the company for unlawful termination.
Some employees have already alleged that they were not given the promised severance pay, along with not being given the proper notice of termination.
The recent win for the Irish former Twitter executive grants him $600,000 instead of $25,000 severance only. This win can be seen as a monumental loss for X and its owner.
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