Twitter promised them severance pay. They got nothing

Shortly after taking via twitter, Elon Musk fired about 50% of the company’s staff. On the same day he tweeted that all those laid off will receive a three-month severance pay. But after waiting two months for the company to reveal what severance pay and benefits will be available, several former Twitter employees say they haven’t heard anything.

As weeks of waiting turn into months, former employees in the US are filing arbitration claims and some in the UK are trying to negotiate terms. In other countries where Twitter fired employees, people didn’t hear anything.

Shortly after the layoffs were announced, Twitter was forced to back off and keep some employees on payroll longer. California employees were hired, though not working, until Jan. 4 to avoid violating the state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice Act, or WARN. AT New York, former employees will be employed for another month in accordance with state law. But as those deadlines pass, Twitter’s silence becomes deafening.

Seven former Twitter employees who spoke to WIRED said they have not received word of their layoffs, despite the fact that some of them are nearing or past their last day at the company. Last month, several former employees announced that they would be filing arbitration claims against the company, alleging that it had violated the WARN Act and that its layoffs constituted a breach of contract.

One former employee who was fired in November is awaiting trial to see if he will be given severance pay at all, and is not sure he will. The other, fired in early November, has not heard from the company.

Still others have yet to receive any details about the severance package, despite the fact that they have been searching Twitter for information since they were fired in November. Prior to this, they were promised at least twice that they would receive details of their package, and each time the promised deadline passed without any information.

A former UK employee says they have also not received word of the severance pay but are currently negotiating terms with the company on behalf of about 300 employees based in the country.

A former Twitter employee in Accra, Ghana, who was open for less than a week before his entire staff was fired, says they, “like other employees around the world, were guaranteed severance pay but haven’t heard from them yet.” . The former employee says they weren’t sure what remedies they could have against the company in Ghana.

However, Twitter is giving some severance pay. One of the former contractors says their boss received information about the severance pay on January 5th. As for the contractor, the agency gave him a box of chocolates, thanks to which they got a job on Twitter. All ex-Twitter employees contacted for this story have been granted anonymity because media exposure may have affected their receipt of severance pay.

While some have opted to wait until their official employee status expires on January 4, others have opted to file preventive legal action against the company.