'Bond villain': Internet slams Elon Musk over reports saying he may not pay severance to fired Twitter staff

'Bond villain': Internet slams Elon Musk over reports saying he may not pay severance to fired Twitter staff
Elon Musk is under fire after reports claim that he has not paid severance to the fired employees post his $44 billion takeover (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: New reports surfacing online claim that Elon Musk has not paid severance to the thousands of employees that were fired ever since his $44 billion takeover. The billionaire tech mogul is catching flack for not treating the ex-employees right and people are worried if the current employees are under the best management or not. The reports also claim that Musk has not been paying at both the San Francisco office and Twitter's offices around the world. 

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While the 51-year-old Twitter CEO is not running out of money, he has held his finances back. Sources tell the New York Times that it has been weeks since Musk paid rent for the San Francisco headquarters and other officers worldwide. So far, he has sold off furniture from the company's HQ, and he has refused to pay unpaid travel costs which were piled up by employees before he took over. The big blue bird has been trying to renegotiate the terms of its lease with the managing company, Shorenstein, but it doesn't seem to be going well. However, sources also claim that he has not paid severance to employees that were relieved of their duties. He initially decided that the US employees would receive up to two months of pay and one month of severance to comply with labor laws. As for the rest of the employees who were "for cause" as per NYT, Musk has refused to pay.