At least six former X employees have received legal notices,according to people speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“It has come to our attention that you received a significant overpayment in error in January 2023,” X’s Asia Pacific human resources department said in an email,seen by this masthead,to a number of former staff this year.
“We would be grateful if you could arrange the repayment to us[using the account details below] at your earliest convenience.”
The company said the overpayment was related to “deferred cash compensation”,in the form of employee shares issued to the staff when they joined Twitter. These shares were valued at $US54.20 ($82) each,the price at whichMusk bought Twitter in 2022,and the total number of shares acquired by an employee was based on the length of their tenure at the company.
The currency conversion errors made by X when employees were paid their entitlements once they were made redundant had led to overpayments of between $1500 and $70,000. According to one account,X paid out the share entitlements at a conversion rate 2.5 times the value of the shares.
Separate correspondence seen by this masthead from representatives for X told former staff members if they failed to comply with the demand set out,Twitter Australia Holdings Pty Ltd reserved the right to commence proceedings for the recovery of the overpayment “together with interest”.