TapTechNews June 13 - Elon Musk's X company is reportedly asking at least six fired Australian employees to return excess paychecks, citing that the company accidentally overpaid their salaries.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported today that "Due to a mistake made by X company in converting US dollars to Australian dollars, resulting in overpayment of wages, they are threatening to take some former Australian employees to court and require them to return the overpaid wages."
Emails sent this year by X Company's Asia-Pacific human resources department said there was a "major mispayment" in January 2023. Allegedly, the amount of overpayment for each employee ranged from 1,500 Australian dollars to 70,000 Australian dollars. So far, none of the fired employees have returned this money.
It is reported that X Company said the overpayment was related to the 'deferred cash compensation' (issued in the form of stocks) when employees joined Twitter. The unit price of these stocks is $54.20, which was the price when Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, and the total number of stocks obtained by employees depends on their years of service in the company.
X Company made an exchange rate conversion error when "paying severance pay to laid-off employees", "According to an informed source, the value of the stocks paid by X Company is 2.5 times its actual value."
X Company requires the fired employees to "repay the funds as soon as possible" and says the company reserves the right to claim the funds and interest in court.
TapTechNews noted that the report quoted employment law expert Hayden Stephens as saying that the fired X Company employees might be forced to return this sum, but they should first "ask X Company to clearly explain the cause of the error and provide supporting documentary evidence." He said that if it was indeed an unintentional fault, "According to Australian employment regulations, employees usually have an obligation to return this money."
It is worth mentioning that X Company is facing lawsuits and arbitration claims from approximately 2,000 former employees in the United States who are fighting to obtain severance pay. Court documents show that mediation negotiations for multiple cases regarding severance pay have not reached an agreement.
In addition, X Company is also facing a lawsuit from four former Twitter executives who said they were immediately fired and deprived of more than $128 million in severance pay after Musk's acquisition of Twitter. This lawsuit was filed by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former chief financial officer Ned Segal, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and former general counsel Sean Edgett, and the plaintiffs propose to hold a trial in November 2025.