[everforward]

I don't think this is a gap. The pronouncement was made on behalf of Twitter, through its agents.

I.e. if an exec promises me a bonus, I'm presuming that it's not a personal promise they're paying out of their own funds. They're making a promise on behalf of the company to pay me with company funds.

That it's not in writing is odd, but I'm guessing both sides of the conversation are willing to testify.

> It seems even more puzzling to enforce this on non-profitable private companies. The precedent that would be set here would severely undermine the ability of a private company to operate if it came in far under revenue targets, and was beholden to pay out bonuses to employees.

Then they shouldn't have made that promise. In reality, it was going to cost them either way though. They either promise a minimum bonus and pay that, or more engineers quit and they spend the money replacing those engineers.

It's also worth noting that at the time the promise was made, Twitter would have still been profitable after paying the bonuses. Musk failing to maintain that profitability does not free him from contractual obligations to employees anymore than it frees him from contractual obligations to other companies.