The top three fired executives of social media behemoth Twitter, including former CEO Parag Agarwal, have filed a lawsuit against the microblogging platform, demanding compensation for the costs of the legal proceedings, the congressional investigations, and other related charges. They asserted that Twitter owes them more than $1 million and that Twitter is required by law to pay them.
The court document, which the news agency AFP was able to access, listed costs associated with inquiries by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), but it did not contain information about the specifics of the investigation. Moreover, there is no indication of whether or not these investigations are still underway.
These filings state that Parag Agarwal and former CFO Ned Segal "have continued to engage with federal authorities" and submitted testimony to the SEC in 2022. Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter shares is being looked into by the US SEC to see if he adhered to securities laws.
On the other side, after Musk made the "Twitter Files" on content filtering on the site public, Vijaya Gadde, a former chief legal officer, was invited to testify before a US House committee on big tech and free speech. In a lawsuit where a man claimed he was "doxed" as a white supremacist at the workplace, she was also named as a defendant.
Musk sacked Agarwal, Gadde, and Segal not long after taking over Twitter in October of last year. Additionally, they claim that despite Twitter's legal obligation to pay them back, it has only acknowledged receiving their receipts.
Additionally, following Musk's hostile takeover, Twitter began firing employees in large numbers, raising questions about its stability and ability to control misinformation and other abuse.
