Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

A group of former Twitter executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, former CFO Ned Segal, former Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, and former General Counsel Sean Edgett, have filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk, seeking to recover more than $128 million in severance payments that they allege Musk has not paid since he acquired the company, now known as X, over a year ago. The executives were fired within hours of Musk taking control of Twitter, with Musk allegedly declining to make the severance payments as a form of revenge after being forced to go through with the $44 billion acquisition deal that he had tried to get out of.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, accuses Musk of firing the executives without reason and fabricating claims of "gross negligence" and "willful misconduct" to avoid paying their severance benefits. This legal action is the latest in a series of lawsuits brought by former Twitter employees related to Musk's acquisition of the company, with one seeking class action status and another accusing X of failing to pay annual bonuses to laid-off employees.

The executives had clauses in their contracts entitling them to severance payments if Twitter was no longer a public company, which they claim they are owed after Musk took the company private. The lawsuit alleges that Musk's actions are part of a pattern of failing to comply with payment obligations, with the executives' lawyers describing it as the “Musk playbook” to keep the money owed to others and force them to sue him. Musk has faced legal action from former employees, vendors, landlords, and business partners who claim that X has failed to pay what they are owed.

A representative for X declined to comment on the lawsuit, and a lawyer for Musk did not respond to a request for comment. The former executives are seeking to recover the severance payments they believe they are owed and hold Musk accountable for his actions in firing them without cause.