Elon Musk and his platform X have agreed to settle with former staff. The workers had sued the company for $500 million in severance pay.
The settlement appeared in a court filing on Wednesday. Both sides asked the San Francisco appeals court to postpone a hearing. They want time to complete the paperwork.
Lawsuit followed mass layoffs
The dispute arose after Musk dismissed around 6,000 employees in 2022. That represented more than half of the company’s staff. Many of those workers filed lawsuits challenging the severance arrangements.
Lawyers for the employees and representatives of X have not commented publicly.
Court records confirmed a settlement in principle had been reached. They also said detailed negotiations were continuing.
Conditions kept under wraps
The terms of the agreement remain undisclosed. Any final deal will need court approval.
Former staff member Courtney McMillian led the lawsuit. She claimed thousands of workers were denied promised benefits under the severance plan.
The suit argued employees should have received up to six months of pay. Instead, most were given at most one month. Some received nothing.
Musk reshaped company with job cuts
The mass layoffs dismantled entire teams such as trust and safety, human rights, and media relations. Musk’s decision became one of the first big workforce reductions in the tech industry’s cost-cutting wave.
Soon after, other tech giants acted. Microsoft, Google, and Facebook announced tens of thousands of job cuts. Those reductions followed heavy hiring during the pandemic’s digital boom.
Musk used same strategy in government role
Earlier this year, Musk briefly led President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. The department’s mission was to cut federal spending and reduce jobs. Musk took the same approach there, overseeing thousands of dismissals.
