More than a year after firing employees in its African headquarters, X, then known as Twitter, has now paid them back, according to the agency that represents the fired employees.
The majority had just been employed by the Accra, Ghanaian capital, company for a few months before they were let go by the social media giant in November 2022.
They had vowed to sue X in court if he didn’t give them the promised redundancy money. The business has not provided a statement. In the past, X has claimed to have compensated its former workers in full.
After taking over the business in 2022, Elon Musk fired over 6,000 workers as part of a huge global staff purge. He claimed to be losing over $4 million (£3.5 million) per day.
Less than 20 Africans make up the contingent; they had recently relocated into X’s new Accra office after spending roughly eight months working from home during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The organization that provides legal representation to the personnel, Agency Seven Seven, stated that it has been successful in obtaining a redundancy settlement and reimbursement for the costs associated with sending foreign employees back home. However, the exact amount of the payout was not disclosed.
Carla Olympio from Agency Seven Seven told the BBC that “they are very pleased to finally be able to get their due, put this behind them, and look to the future.”
Former employees revealed to the BBC last year that they had suffered financial and mental hardship as a result of X’s treatment.
One person remarked, “It’s difficult when the richest man in the world owes you money and closure.”
They claimed that at first, they were informed that even though their contracts were ending, they would still get paid to labor for an additional month. However, they lost access to their emails right away, and they stopped receiving wage checks.
The employees claimed that ever since, they have been embroiled in an irksome dispute over remuneration.
A portion of them relocated from nearby nations like Nigeria. They and their families were left stranded in Ghana as a result of their contract termination.
In a rare interview with the BBC in April of last year, Mr. Musk said that the number of employees at the social media behemoth had dropped from little under 8,000 to 1,500 since he had acquired the business.
Following the public release of information about his drastic workforce reduction, Mr. Musk tweeted that laid-off workers received three months of severance pay. However, the employees stationed at the Africa office claim not to have received this.
Negotiations with the fired Africa employees allegedly started only after the BBC broke the story, according to Agency Seven Seven.
A lawsuit was launched against X last year in a Californian court by former employees who claimed the company had failed to provide at least $500 million in promised severance benefits.
