Twitter sued by employees for failing to pay millions of bonuses

Twitter failed to pay annual bonuses to staff, following the Elon Musk acquisition of the company, according to a lawsuit filed by the employees on Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed by Mark Schobinger, a former senior director of compensation at Twitter, is seeking class action status for former and current Twitter employees who did not receive their bonus in 2022.

“We estimate about a couple thousand employees would have been eligible for the bonuses, while I don’t have an exact number, we expect the amount owed is in the tens of millions,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney representing Schobinger.

Liss-Riordan had previously brought other class action suits against Twitter, including ones on behalf of female and disabled employees, and former employees accusing Twitter of breach of contract related to remote work agreement.

After Musk announced his acquisition of the social media platform, many employees raised concerns over the fate of their compensation and annual bonus if and when the deal closed, the lawsuit stated.

Twitter’s executives had repeatedly promised employees that 2022 bonuses would be paid at 50 percent of the target, but despite the promises, the bonuses have not been paid out.

The lawsuit is part of a series of lawsuits filed by former Twitter employees after Musk completed his acquisition and laid off 80 percent of the staff to cut costs.