Getty Images | Kirill Kudryavtsev
Elon Musk’s X Corp. is reportedly demanding money from at least six Australians who were laid off, saying the company accidentally overpaid them. The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that “X is threatening to take some former Australian employees to court, demanding they return entitlements it claims were overpaid to them after it bungled the currency conversion from US to Australian dollars on the payments.”
Emails sent this year by X’s Asia Pacific human resources department to the laid-off employees said there was “a significant overpayment in error in January 2023.” The alleged overpayments ranged from $1,500 to $70,000 for each employee.
So far, none of the former employees have repaid the money, The Sydney Morning Herald was told. One Australian dollar is currently worth $0.67 in US currency.
“The company said the overpayment was related to ‘deferred cash compensation,’ in the form of employee shares issued to the staff when they joined Twitter,” the article said. “These shares were valued at $US54.20 ($82) each, the price at which Musk bought Twitter in 2022, and the total number of shares acquired by an employee was based on the length of their tenure at the company.”
X reportedly made the currency conversion errors “when employees were paid their entitlements once they were made redundant… According to one account, X paid out the share entitlements at a conversion rate 2.5 times the value of the shares.”
X asked the laid-off employees for repayment “at your earliest convenience” and said the company reserved the right to seek the return of the money plus interest in court, the report said.
In US, ex-workers still fighting for severance
Employment law specialist Hayden Stephens was paraphrased in the report as saying that the ex-X workers may be forced to return the money, but they should first “ask X to clearly explain how the error occurred and ask for supporting documentary evidence.” He said that if there was a genuine mistake, “there is usually an obligation to repay that money” under Australian employment law.
X has not responded to a request for comment from Ars today.
X overpaying laid-off employees is the opposite of what allegedly happened to many former US-based workers. X was served with lawsuits and arbitration claims from about 2,000 ex-employees who were fighting to receive severance. Settlement talks in multiple severance cases ended without deals, court filings state.
X is also facing a lawsuit from four former Twitter executives who say they were cheated out of more than $128 million in severance when Musk fired them immediately after buying the firm. The lawsuit was filed by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and former General Counsel Sean Edgett. The plaintiffs proposed a trial date in November 2025.
Musk also refused to pay a variety of Twitter vendors after taking over, leading to a deluge of lawsuits seeking compensation.
