Former Twitter Employees $500M Severance Suit Dismissed
wsj.com
wsj.com
>The judge in California’s northern district said this week that the lawsuit by two ex-Twitter employees incorrectly claimed the company’s severance plan was governed by a federal law dictating minimum payment thresholds.
From the legal docs
>Plaintiff Courtney McMillian was an employee at Twitter as the Head of People Experience leading Compensation, Benefits, and other global functions.
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Seems strange that the person who headed up benefits would get this one wrong.
Musk ... has denied wrongdoing, saying he fired the executives for cause.
I think the plaintiff just showed cause with that one.
In some particular markets it may be helpful to only attract workers who aren't very confident, but in the longer term I think it would hurt possibilities to have a lot of the work force take a piss on your job offers. I.e. never the best in a niche, only whoever will entertain an offer connected to Musk.
If he just paid proper severance every time (rather than paying out after being sued), I think he'd still be absolutely ok.
Doesn't matter in this weeks market, but he can't even convince people he's capable of remaining a passive investor, so ten years from now no top spots, no top people because the way norms are enforced is by black balling people like him whenever it is tolerably inconvenient.
He’s just calling their bluff.
If they thought they could get another tenant, they already would have.
Commercial real estate in many areas of the US is so crazy delusional right now (and has been for years) it’s all about who blinks first and who has leverage.
Even if people in that part of the real estate market are desperate relative to their normal they have tricks to ignore business they don't want to deal with and take a lower offer from someone they either trust or at least don't distrust.
Making it obvious that the US is no longer a country of laws and contract law will work against people like him in the long run, so his take for a lot of future costs is irrational and I think he should finally deal with his mental problems.
Except this has always been a risk in commercial real estate. And has played out over and over again with a wide variety of tenants.
Is it a dick move? Sure.
Good thing landlords never try and pull any dick moves eh?
Nice try on the ‘law and order’ bit though.
Not sure how calling your counterparty crazy helps the bottom line, it just seems to make it more obvious someone didn’t actually think through the deal they were making, and is sore about it. Speaking of delusion….
A lot more folks are starting to look down now this summer, and it’s looking a lot scarier eh?
Ruining such people's future prospects whenever this happens to reduce the future risk has been such a good strategy that countries like the US introduced credit rating bureaus to emulate this for managing risk with less famous people.
We are naturally in a very unusual time, but things will shift back and the facts will stay and reputational meaning will be interpreted correctly then.
There are always enough idiots to do business with if you are a famous connman, but your business is always of a certain limited category.
If he were poor and did this I think you'd admit he is a putz. I live in a free country where I can choose which market participants to deal with and see no reason to feel intimidated by the buying power of a putz I won't ever be foolish enough to depend on. The more significant someone is in the society the more likely they are to be able to afford my position and not risk yours.
Howard Hughes did things like Musk though. It’s part of his brand. Anyone doing business with him that didn’t expect some kind of shenanigans if things changed was being willfully ignorant.
If he was poor and did things this way, he wouldn’t have leverage and it wouldn’t work. Same if he didn’t have the shareholders by the balls.
What works is what matters eh?
Or as they say, he’s not crazy - he’s eccentric. When/if he ends up poor, we can call him crazy again.
Long term, Karma/reputation wise, I would hope you are correct. It is often how it has worked in the US.
If you were in Russia in the 90’s and assumed that is how it worked going forward, you’d be in pretty bad shape though eh? Hopefully you’d only end up broke/bankrupt and not in a Gulag or thrown out a window.
At the point someone is writing commercial leases, the kid gloves have been off a long time ago, and it’s hard for anyone to shed any tears for the outcomes.
I personally don’t get involved, but it is what it is. Everyone likes to pretend they have infinite options and don’t need assholes money, but when they’re staring at bankruptcy (or having to face reality and ‘mark to market’ at a more realistic valuation) somehow they sign leases anyway.
I'm not saying Musk won't find those people, I'm saying he has reduced the rest of his life to being surrounded by those people. A giant drop from what he was attracting when he began his startups.
If the rest of the US takes a realist view like yours then it is best not to waste time there and start to consider which economies accept US resources/credentials and will do better.. IMO, that's exactly what a successful Russian did in the 90s and why they aren't foolishly still in Russia submitting and becoming fodder.
And what economy do you think is going to be better than the US on this front?
In some ways yes (taxes, corruption if you stay in Singapore), in other ways No (to make much money you’ll likely be dealing with China/Chinese a lot - and if you think they’re better than Musk than lol).
Either way an experience!