this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
827 points (97.7% liked)

News

22838 readers
3736 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Elon Musk’s alleged penchant for not paying bills is catching up with him. In the wake of numerous lawsuits claiming the world’s richest man failed to pay severance owed to many of the 6,000 employees he fired after acquiring Twitter. On Monday, CNBC reported that the tech company now known as X is facing some 2,200 arbitration cases filed by ex-employees, which come with $3.5 million in required fees—an amount that doesn’t even include the actual severance owed to those Musk let go.

In October, shortly after taking Twitter’s reins, Musk laid off more than half of its employees, promising most at least two months’ salary plus a week’s pay for every year they’d worked at the firm. Thousands claim that they haven’t received a single dime, and ex-employees have since filed several lawsuits seeking their promised benefits.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 121 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You guys are failing to see that this was a simple misunderstanding.

Musk was told he needed to pay severance to all the ex employees, but he was confused why he was paying severance to "X employees" if they were still employed, so he simply didn't.

It's an easy mistake. Anyone could've done it.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Hence the rename from Twitter -- more five-dimensional chess from that crafty bastard.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Ah, the old Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal gambit.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I worked at a company (as briefly as possible) where an advisor came in and did this. He started listing off who we actually needed to pay on our rotating debts and who we could put off and how long. When I left, within 3 months several very important vendors were calling asking if I could do anything to help them out. I told them if they stopped sending supplies that would probably help the process.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I told them if they stopped sending supplies that would probably help the process.

Somebody running a business actually needed to be told this?

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Many sub contractors live on the mercy of the companies they supply. That forces them to show more goodwill than they want.

I remember a couple years back when Ericsson unilaterally decided that they would stop paying their bills after a month and instead changed it to three months. So, do you want to piss off the biggest company in the region or do you just say "Thank you, sir"?

As an aside, what kind of amoral sod goes around teaching companies what bills they can ignore and how morally bankrupt must you be to listen to them?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Capitalism has no moral component. In fact, quite the opposite in its purest form.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When your neck is on the chopping block anyway, I guess you see how long you can spin out your last words.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Elon Musk’s alleged penchant for not paying bills is catching up with him.

Citation required. It's not having any effect on him personally, the businesses are the ones which are affected. And when you're not depending on your businesses to eat and live, there are zero consequences.

They're all his shitty decisions, but as usual, he doesn't pay for it. The profits are privatised while the losses are socialised. And I'm pretty sick of the media counting eggs before they hatch, because they usually don't hatch at all.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, the business he bought (with not only his money) has been sued and evicted. The only time Musk has personally ever been on the hook was when he tried to wriggle out of buying said business, and the business sued him personally. Otherwise, he can walk away consequence-free from everything else.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, the business he bought (with not only his money)

That's literally part of the problem. He hadn't paid interest on the loan he took out to buy Twitter.

But also, he was CEO when these things all happened. He is the one who made the decisions not to make payments toward rent on two of his offices, toward his loan, or toward his consulting firm. I'm not sure what sort of mental gymnastics you're doing to say that he isn't responsible for these things. Twitter wasn't having those problems pre-Musk, and is only having these problems as a direct result of Musk's decision-making. That's kinda part of what being a CEO entails.

Not sure why one would ask for citations and then dismiss them.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (4 children)

They aren't saying he pays his bills, they're saying there are effectively no consequences for him personally every time he does it. He's not the one footing the bill for these Xitter lawsuits, it's his company.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

I think they meant citation required for the "is catching up with him" part.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I haven’t yet seen an article where a reporter totals up the numbers and associated dollar amounts associated with Musk’s mismanagement. In terms of general classes - and I’m just going off the top of my head here - we’re looking at (including only the twitter related ones):

  1. Failure to pay agreed upon payouts for fired employees
  2. Age discriminatory termination lawsuits
  3. Violation of employment contracts re: return to work and other conditions
  4. Failure to pay rents and infrastructure fees
  5. Failure to moderate content according to legally required regulations
  6. Allocation of TSLA employees to work at Twitter, a different company with different shareholders, thus robbing Peter to pay Paul on investors’ dimes

There were also potential suits over mass terminations contrary to state and national laws, but I haven’t heard as much about those recently.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (5 children)

In the event that Twitter files for bankruptcy, would it partially shield them from all that debt? Yeah, it's a dirty play and would totally expect Elon to do it if he could.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

its so much worse than just that. there are so many financial mechanisms to avoid liability its not even funny. most of the unwashed are unfamiliar with them because they are specifically written to keep rich people rich.

money flows to the top, accountability... not so much. and that is 100% the design.

the twist here is a callous, idiotic billionaire using this lack of responsibility for his own enjoyment. he will never, ever personally suffer for any of the harm caused to all humans affected by his terrible business practices. he is shielded by money, or what we call money these days.

twitter will cost him billions in personal funds when it goes under, and it will not affect him at all.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I still don't understand why no one has just pushed this guy out a window yet.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don’t mean this as a threat, but as plain kinetic question. How do billionaires stay so safe with so many enemies? It’s a bit baffling to me. Security is fascinating to me.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In this present day, we're barely steps or even a half step away from having absolutely tyrannically-dictator type behaviors from billionaires. It's almost as bad as the Roman Emperors that were batshit crazy, and their own Praetorian Guard eventually took those motherfuckers out. It baffles me how we had Presidential assassination attempts as recently as the 80's in the US but wasting billionaires just isn't a thing. It's very amazing power structure.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Zuckerberg spends about $30 million per year on personal security, I would guess the rest of the billionaires do the same.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

It's because people like this around themselves with a cadre of yes men. Apparently Elon is known to have a large group of Tesla and SpaceX groupies essentially. To use them to replace key positions at X.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

On that's easy, it's because he's still on Putin's good side.

As to why no one has... encouraged him into any other "mysterious accident", though, your guess is as good as mine.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because you don't get your money back if you kill him. That's why the mob just breaks kneecaps.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No you just put a cut on the end of their pointer finger on their dominant hand. That way every time they touch something it reminds them who their money belongs to. You save kneecapping for someone who you've lost all hope of paying you back and now their value to you is as an example for others.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

... you sound like you have experience

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He took a big loan from the Saudis to pay for Twitter, so that could still happen.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not out of a window I guess. They have other style.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

X just might mark the spot for treasure here

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

X is not gonna give it to ya

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So was the rebranding of Twitter to X just so Elon could say "U fuckin' wot m8? This company is X, and your employment contract is with Twitter, so it looks like you were never employed here."?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fortunately that doesn't work.

Even if Musk totally shut down Twitter, then opened an identical platform named X, the contracts Twitter held are still enforceable under the law.

There might be stipulations in the contracts where severance isn't payable if the company fails, but if I remember correctly, this severance is something mandated by state law, and not just a contractual perk.

So bottom line, Musk is liable unless his lawyers are able to worm their way into a settlement.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Couldnt happen to a nicer dbag

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

he couldn't care less, he's worth 95 Billion more now than when he purchased Twitter, the cruelty is the point

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Smart. Flush money down the toilet trying to impersonate Trump by not paying your bills. Maybe he should run for president.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

This sounds like purposeful sabotage, but then again I've been saying that daily since Musk took over.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Waiting like this was smart. Unfortunately.

Options:

  1. Stall as long as possible. Twitter makes a bunch of money. Have money to pay severances. All good.

  2. Twitter fails anyways. No money to pay anybody but had as long a runway as possible. Bankrupt and a financial guy nominated by a judge sorts it out.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (12 children)

What's that come out to, around? 4 weeks pay per employee?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Well, minimum 2 months per employee plus the 4 weeks. Let’s figure an average salary of $80k. 6000 employees with an average tenure of 4 years. Let’s go ahead and round that to 3 months salary. So he’s paying the equivalent of 1500 employee’s average salary. That works out to about $120m.

I think my salary estimate is low there, and I have no idea what the tenure of the employees would be. Either way, not a small sum for a company that’s barely treading water.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am gyessing that engineers at Twitter were probably making around $150k per year, give or take.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I would guess 150-250k.

Twitter was known for lower pay (and a lower pace) than the big names, but it's still the bay area.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›