No court award of $500 million is established by the cited records. A judge dismissed the former Twitter employees’ case in 2024 on ERISA and jurisdiction grounds, not because she found that no severance was owed. The parties later reported a tentative settlement, but the available accounts and docket snapshot do not establish its final terms, approval, or payment.
What did the former employees claim?
Former Twitter employees Courtney McMillian and Ronald Cooper brought a proposed class action over severance after layoffs following Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of the company. Reuters reported in July 2024 that the plaintiffs claimed at least $500 million in severance was owed. That was the amount alleged in the lawsuit—not a debt a court had determined X or Musk owed.
Reuters also reported that Musk fired approximately 6,000 workers in the mass layoffs. That figure describes the reported scale of the layoffs; it does not mean every affected worker was part of the case or entitled to the same payment.
The formula alleged in the complaint
In an amended complaint filed October 13, 2023, the plaintiffs described an earlier severance policy as providing most eligible employees with two months of base pay plus one week of pay for each full year of service. This was the plaintiffs’ account of the policy, not a formula adopted by the court or proof that it applied to every former employee.
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In July 2024, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson dismissed the case, concluding that ERISA did not govern the severance claims as pleaded and that the court lacked jurisdiction. The Guardian’s July 10, 2024 report described those grounds.
That ruling was procedural. It did not decide that former employees had no severance rights under any other law or legal theory, nor did it establish that the plaintiffs’ alleged $500 million was owed. A dismissal on those grounds is not the same as a decision after trial that the employees had no valid claim.
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What happened after the dismissal?
- August 2025: The parties disclosed a tentative settlement and asked to postpone a hearing while they worked toward a final agreement. The Associated Press reported on August 21, 2025, that the terms were not disclosed. Its description was expressly of a “tentative settlement,” not a completed or court-approved payout.
- November 2025: Law360 reported that the tentative deal had hit a stumbling block, with lawyers for individual former employees disputing the next steps.
- January 2026: A Justia mirror of Ninth Circuit appeal 25-5798 lists a January 23 notice that the appellees would not file an answering brief. The plaintiffs’ law firm, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, separately reported amended-complaint activity that month.
Was the settlement finalized, and were employees paid?
The cited accounts and records do not establish a final settlement amount, court approval, distribution to employees, or ultimate disposition of the case. The appellate docket mirror is a dated snapshot and warns that later PACER entries may exist; the law firm’s case page is an account from plaintiffs’ counsel. Neither source, as described here, confirms a final payment or approval.
Accordingly, the precise answer is that the $500 million was claimed, not shown to have been paid or awarded. The 2024 dismissal did not resolve the underlying severance entitlement on the merits, and the later tentative-settlement reporting does not by itself prove that a binding, completed settlement followed.
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