Omid Kordestani, who held the position of executive chairman at Twitter from 2015 to 2020 and remained on the board until Elon Musk acquired it in 2022, is suing X over $20 million worth of shares he alleges the company is refusing to pay. Kordestani filed the lawsuit on Friday with a California superior court.
According to the lawsuit, Kordestani left a high-paying job at Google to join Twitter, which offered him a “significantly lower” salary of just $50,000 but made the offer more attractive with stock options, performance-based restricted stock units, and restricted stock units. These — totaling $20,112,000 — were intended to be paid out when Musk acquired Twitter and replaced the board, but X has allegedly failed to fulfill this obligation. “X Corp. seeks to reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without compensating him, despite clear contractual language requiring X Corp. to do so,” the lawsuit states.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, with employees alleging they were not properly compensated after being laid off or fired. Former sued earlier this year, claiming they were terminated “without reason” and are owed millions of dollars in unpaid severance. The latest lawsuit asserts that “Mr. Kordestani is one of many former Twitter employees whose compensation has been wrongfully withheld by X Corp. following Elon Musk’s purchase of the Company in October 2022.”
