Supposedly, they were dismissed for cause minutes before they would have been awarded millions in severance when the sale closed. I’m fairly sure I recall that Parag and colleagues sued because the dismissal for cause was an obvious stretch of the imagination.
The parent post is referring to the "golden parachute" execs are entitled to when fired by new ownership in situations like this. This is different from getting the $54.20 for shareholders. The purpose of these payments are to help align the incentives of leadership with shareholders so they cooperate in getting these complex deals closed.
We’re not even talking about golden parachutes. Literally every employee had a severance package specified and agreed to in the sales contract. Musk straight up violated the agreement the first week.
The amount is negligible to the world’s richest man. He just violated it because he could.
I was referring to the GP argument that was specifically asking about exec payouts, not the broader point of the article that Musk is just stiffing these people just because he can.