In a long-awaited resolution, X, formerly known as Twitter, has finally paid off the staff it sacked in its African headquarters more than a year after they were laid off, according to the agency representing them. The affected employees, who had only been in their jobs for a few months, were based in Accra, the capital of Ghana, when they were fired in November 2022.
Threats of legal action loomed as the terminated staff accused X of failing to pay the promised redundancy money. However, the company has not commented on the matter. X has previously claimed to have compensated former employees in full.
The massive global downsizing effort initiated by Elon Musk, who took over the company in 2022, resulted in the dismissal of over 6,000 employees. Musk had stated that he was losing more than $4 million (£3.5 million) a day. The African contingent, numbering fewer than 20 employees, had recently moved into X’s new office in Accra after working remotely for about eight months during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Agency Seven Seven, the company providing legal representation to the staff, announced that it had successfully secured a redundancy settlement and repatriation expenses for foreign staff. However, the exact amount of the payout was not specified. Carla Olympio from Agency Seven Seven expressed the staff’s relief and their eagerness to move forward.
Last year, sacked staffers revealed that their treatment by X had negatively impacted their mental health and finances. One employee described the difficulty of being owed money and closure by the world’s richest man. Initially, the staff were informed that they would be paid to work for one more month despite their contracts being terminated. However, they were immediately locked out of their emails, and no further salary payments were made.
Since then, the staff have been engaged in a frustrating battle for compensation. Some employees had relocated from neighboring countries, such as Nigeria, and their contract termination left them stranded in Ghana along with their families.
In a rare interview last April, Musk stated that X had 1,500 employees, down from the nearly 8,000 employed at the time he acquired the company. When news of Musk’s radical staff cull became public, he tweeted that laid-off employees were given three months’ severance pay. However, the staff based in the Africa office claim that they did not receive this.
According to Agency Seven Seven, negotiations between X and the sacked Africa staff only began after the story was covered by the BBC. Last year, X faced a lawsuit filed by ex-employees in a California court, alleging the company’s refusal to pay at least $500 million in promised severance packages.