[threeseed]

> overall it's a negative for society

I would disagree.

We shouldn't allow criminal behaviour to be tolerated just because it's white collar.

And the whole point of laws is to protect the vulnerable in our society which definitely includes the innocent employees who are being harmed for doing nothing other than working for Twitter/X.

[jntvjnvutnuvt]

How is it criminal behavior to not offer severance, which 99% of companies don't offer? Not offering severance has nothing to do with criminal behavior. If so, 99% of small businesses owners would be imprisoned in your world.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Why do you keep posting stuff like this, when people are very clearly not arguing this?

Nobody believes that executives should be jailed for not offering severance - that's not what is being discussed. But if part of a termination agreement includes a guarantee of severance (and these termination agreements basically always include responsibilities for the employee to uphold in order to receive that sentence), and then you just decide not to pay it, and it looks like you basically never had the intent to pay it, that looks a lot more like fraud.

[lightbritefight]

The purchase contract had language in that that current twitter employees would be paid out severance via the then current twitter standards. He signed said contract.

He also publicly promised severance to all employees he laid off, when laying them off, then tried to back out of it after the fact.

So we have both contract law and public statements that he owes severance to thousands of people, and now is just refusing to pay. What kind of behavior is that?

[KingMob]

You're responding to something not in the parent comment.

"Protect the vulnerable" there probably means enforcing contractual obligations to pay severance that was promised, not to offer severance in the first place.

[locopati]

Elon? Is that you?