Plaintiff Leslie Berland filed her lawsuit last November 2024 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Bertrand claims she was wrongly denied approximately $20 million in benefits under Twitter’s severance plan after Musk wrongly attempted to justify her termination as being for cause, reported Bloomberg Law.
Berland was Twitter’s CMO from February 2016 through November 1, 2022 and a participant in “the Change of Control Severance and Involuntary Termination Protection Policy”, which was an employee welfare benefit plan within the meaning of ERISA. Twitter adopted this plan `to provide certain protections to a select group of key Twitter, Inc. … employees if their employment is negatively affected by a change on control of Twitter. To be eligible for benefits, the participant’s employment must have “ended as a result of an `Involuntary Termination. Her lawsuit also states that, “Berland never received any material negative feedback, was never advised she had failed to follow company policies or rules, and was never advised that she had engaged in gross negligence, willful misconduct, or any other conduct that could even arguably constitute `Cause’ under the Plan.”
Soon after Elon Musk and X Holdings bought Twitter in 2022, Musk unlawfully deprived executives of their employment benefits owed under the Plan. Just minutes after he acquired Twitter, Musk fired several Twitter executives, but Berland stayed on as his primary contact. In October 2022, after suggesting that Musk meet with Twitter’s head of global sales who didn’t agree to let President Donald Trump back on the platform (Trump was banned in 2021, saying two tweets he posted two days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol violated the company’s Glorification of Violence Policy), Musk texted Berland that she’d made a bad recommendation and fired her the following morning. And Musk tweeted that Trump would regain access to the social media platform.
One month after her termination, Musk told Berland that she’d been terminated “for cause,” because she’d failed to comply with Twitter’s “written policies” and engaged in “gross negligence or willful misconduct,” Berland said in her lawsuit. In December 2022 she submitted a claim for severance benefits, but in June 2023 Berland was told that she didn’t qualify. Several other executives also filed lawsuits, alleging that Musk fired them to avoid paying $200 million in severance benefits.
Berland appealed the denial of benefits in September 2023, but a committee comprising human resources personnel from Tesla and SpaceX rejected the request in early 2024, according to Law360.
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In their motion to dismiss Berland’s unlawful discharge claim, Defendants said it could not stand because she was seeking equitable relief that was not appropriate under ERISA. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said the court will deny a motion from X, Musk and other executives to dismiss her claim for unlawful discharge to interfere with her right to benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Berland is seeking $20 million in severance benefits and over $1.4 million for the equity she said should’ve vested when she was terminated, plus front pay, back pay and interest.
The case is Berland v. X Corp., Successor in Interest to Twitter Inc. et al., case number 3:24-cv-07589, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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