Elon Musk denies allegations of firing Twitter employees to avoid payouts

Elon Musk, the company's new owner, has refuted a New York Times report that said Twitter would fire staff before November 1 to avoid having to pay out stock grants on that day.

Musk wrote, in response to a Twitter user who inquired about the layoffs, "This is false."

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Musk had mandated layoffs before Nov. 1, when workers were supposed to receive stock awards as part of their remuneration. Musk also ordered employment cuts across the company, with some teams being reduced more than others.

According to the Times, who cited unnamed persons with knowledge of the situation, the cuts may start as soon as this Saturday.

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According to media sources on Saturday, Musk planned additional layoffs for this coming Saturday while he sacked key employees to avoid huge severance payments.

People with knowledge of the situation told Reuters that Musk fired Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and Chief Legal Affairs and Policy Officer Vijaya Gadde after the completion of a highly publicised $44 billion buyout of the social media platform on Thursday.

Regarding the predominance of bogus accounts on the platform, he alleged that they had misled him and Twitter's investors. According to research firm Equilar, the CEOs might have received parting benefits totalling close to $122 million.

The Information alleged that Elon Musk fired four top Twitter executives, including Agrawal and Segal, "for cause," citing unnamed persons with knowledge of the situation, apparently to dodge severance compensation and unvested stock awards.

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LightShed analyst Rich Greenfield said in a tweet on Saturday that Musk removed top Twitter executives "for cause," delaying the vesting of their unvested stock as part of a shift of ownership.

Reuters' request for comment from Twitter did not receive a response right away. The fired executives were not immediately reachable by Reuters.

According to Courtney Yu, director of research at Equilar, the ousted executives "should be getting these (severance) payouts unless Elon Musk had cause for termination, with the cause in these cases usually being that they broke the law or violated company policy," Yu told Reuters on Friday.

(With inputs from Reuters)