By Madlin Mekelburg and Kurt Wagner | Bloomberg
Former Twitter Chairman Omid Kordestani sued the social media company, claiming that billionaire owner Elon Musk is refusing to cash out more than $20 million worth of shares he is owed.
Kordestani served as the company’s executive chairman from 2015 to 2020 and stayed on the board for two more years, until Musk bought the platform for $44 billion. He said in the complaint that the bulk of his compensation was stock, which he says Musk is refusing to pay out.
Lawyers for the former chairman claim that X Corp., as Musk renamed the company, is seeking to “reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without paying him for it.”
The lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, is the latest in a series of legal actions taken against Musk by former leaders at Twitter since he took over. In March, four ex-executives sued Musk for allegedly withholding more than $128 million in severance payments after they were ousted from the company.
X declined to comment.
Before his time at Twitter, Kordestani was a longtime business leader at Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
–With assistance from Rachel Graf.
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