- Twitter’s ex-CMO, Leslie Berland, is suing Elon Musk, saying she is owed $20 million in severance.
- The complainant says she was fired in “petty retribution” over an incident involving advertisers.
Twitter’s former chief advertising officer, Leslie Berland, is suing Elon Musk, saying she is owed over $20 million in unpaid severance.
Berland was “out of the blue” fired in November 2022, 5 days after Musk acquired the social media platform, now generally known as X, for $44 billion. According to court docket paperwork, she had held the place of CMO for seven years.
“Nobody advised Ms. Berland the explanation for her termination,” her attorneys allege within the grievance, which was filed on November 1 in California’s northern district court docket and Business Insider has seen.
Bloomberg Law first reported the lawsuit.
Though Berland says she was not formally advised the explanation for her dismissal, the declare accuses Musk of firing her in “petty retribution” for an incident involving Twitter’s advertisers.
In the times following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, Berland was the one “major Twitter government” Musk was talking to, and he or she was personally chosen as the purpose individual for his and his transition crew’s wants, the grievance says.
According to the grievance, on 31 October, Musk attended a gathering with advertisers throughout which he “went off script” and instructed re-instating Donald Trump’s then-suspended Twitter account.
The paperwork state {that a} Twitter worker who was there on Bertrand’s suggestion cautioned Musk in opposition to reinstating Trump in entrance of the advertisers, leaving him “embarrassed and offended.”
“JP is just not going to work out. Bad suggestion,” Musk texted Berland in relation to the worker, the grievance says. Berland and the worker she beneficial had been fired a couple of hours later it mentioned.
Under Twitter’s Change of Control and Involuntary Termination Protection Policy, which was nonetheless in place on the time of her dismissal, she had not been fired “for Cause,” in accordance with the paperwork.
Berland claims she was wrongly denied about $20 million in advantages owed to her underneath Twitter’s coverage.
Twitter didn’t reply to a request for remark from Business Insider.
Berland’s lawsuit says that 26 days after her dismissal, she acquired a letter informing her that she had been fired “for Cause,” which her attorneys state was an effort to keep away from paying her advantages.
The grievance says that round six months later, Twitter supplied her with extra particulars in regards to the motive for her firing, together with that Twitter had been mismanaged previous to Musk’s acquisition and that she had as soon as traveled by constitution airplane to help Musk, violating firm coverage.
Berland was appointed CMO of the telecoms firm Verizon in 2024.
Musk is going through plenty of lawsuits over his dealing with of Twitter throughout his first months as its proprietor.
Four senior Twitter officers, together with former CEO Parag Agrawal, have filed lawsuits in opposition to Musk over their severance funds. They are collectively asking for $128 million.
Musk had sought to have these fits dismissed, however final week, California choose Maxine Chesney mentioned they may proceed in a submitting seen by Business Insider. Bloomberg first reported on the denial of Musk’s try at dismissal.
In August, an worker in Ireland was awarded 550,000 euros (roughly $600,000) for unfair dismissal after he was fired for failing to reply to an electronic mail demanding an “extraordinarily hardcore” work tradition. Others are suing over claims involving unpaid IT payments and unpaid bonuses.
X has sued a number of advertisers over claims they conspired to boycott the platform.
