Former Twitter chairman is suing X for $20 million over pay he says was ‘wrongfully withheld’

Omid Kordestani, who was Twitter’s executive chairman from 2015 to 2020 and served on the board until Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, is suing X over $20 million worth of shares he says the company is refusing to pay. Kordestani filed the lawsuit on Friday with a California superior court.

Per the lawsuit, Kordestani left a high paying job at Google to join Twitter, which offered him a “significantly lower” salary of just $50,000 but sweetened the deal with stock options, performance-based restricted stock units and restricted stock units. These — amounting to $20,112,000 — were supposed to have been paid out when Musk acquired Twitter and replaced the board, but X has failed to do so, according to the lawsuit. “X Corp. seeks to reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without paying him for it, despite clear contractual language requiring X Corp. to do so,” it says.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed in the wake of Musk’s Twitter acquisition from employees alleging they were not paid properly after they were laid off or fired. Former Twitter executives sued Musk and X earlier this year, claiming they were fired “without reason” and are owed millions of dollars in unpaid severance. The latest lawsuit says that “Mr. Kordestani is one of many former Twitter employees whose compensation has been wrongfully withheld by X Corp. following Elon Musk’s purchase of the Company in October 2022.”

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