Ex-Twitter chairman sues X for $20 million over what he says was ‘improperly withheld’ payment

Omid Kordestani, who was the chairman of Twitter from 2015 to 2020 and served on the board until Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, has sued X for more than $20 million in shares that he says the company refuses to pay. Kordestani filed the lawsuit Friday in California’s highest court.

According to the lawsuit, Kordestani left a high-paying job at Google to join Twitter, which offered him a “very low” salary of only $50,000 but a deal with stock options, performance-based restricted stock units and restricted stock units. These – up to $ 20,112,000 – were supposed to be paid when Musk found Twitter and took a position on the board, but X failed to do so, according to the lawsuit. “IX Corp. wants to reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of work at Twitter without paying him for it, despite express contract language requiring X Corp. to do so,” it said.

Multiple lawsuits were filed after Musk was found on Twitter by employees claiming they were not paid properly after being laid off or fired. Earlier this year, they claimed they were fired “without cause” and owed millions of dollars in unpaid severance pay. The latest case is “Mr. Kordestani is one of the former Twitter employees whose compensation was improperly held by X Corp. following Elon Musk’s purchase of the Company in October 2022.”