X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, is facing 2,200 arbitration cases that ex-employees filed after Elon Musk took over the company, slashed headcount, and made other sweeping changes there. The filing fees alone for that volume of cases could amount to $3.5 million.

The arbitration numbers were revealed in a new filing out Monday as part of a lawsuit in a Delaware district court. The case is Chris Woodfield v. Twitter, X Corp. and Elon Musk (No. 1:23-cv-780-CFC).

As CNBC has previously reported, many large corporations require workers to sign an arbitration agreement upon employment wherever it is legal to do so. This means to speak freely in court, where their speech can become part of a public record, workers would first need to get an exemption from a judge.

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[–] 235 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I have no sympathy. Companies that require class action waivers and mandatory arbitration clauses don't get to complain when thousands of people file arbitration claims simultaneously.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    I've actually used arbitration to get my way in the past when I pointed out to the company that their filing fee for the arbitration was more expensive than just honoring their commitments, so even if I lost they'd be out several times what I wanted.

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  • [–] 202 points 3 years ago (21 children)

    I get a kick out of every time a journalist feels they need to specify "formerly known as Twitter" because X is such a generic, indistinguishable brand.

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  • [–] 70 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    I think it would be better to say "Twitter, currently branded as X" it is both useful and makes it look like it is just a cringy phase a teenager might go through temporarily. So you should just ignore the change and it will eventually resolve itself.

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  • [–] 48 points 3 years ago (8 children)

    Might as well just call it Twitter. The only people that go along with calling it "X" are chuds and Musk sycophants.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Currently x.com still redirects to Twitter.com, so I don’t see any issues with calling it Twitter.

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  • [–] 88 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Musk is killing it!

    ("it" being whatever shred of reputation he had left before the last year or so)

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Oh he's been burning that reputation for a good while. I feel like when he tried to send a useless sub and called some guy a pedo was probably the largest turning point for many. Since that point he's been less and less heralded as he was before hand.

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  • [–] [B] 18 points 3 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, is facing 2,200 arbitration cases that ex-employees filed after Elon Musk took over the company, slashed headcount, and made other sweeping changes there.

    Woodfield, a former senior staff network engineer who had worked at Twitter’s Seattle office, alleges in his suit that Musk’s Twitter (now known as X) had promised then failed to pay his severance, and later delayed alternative dispute resolution by failing to pay the necessary fees required for him to move ahead in the JAMS arbitration system.

    The company’s lawyers have argued that it did not mandate employees to resolve any issues in arbitration, so it should not be on the hook for the larger portion of the filing fees.

    As CNBC has previously reported, many large corporations require workers to sign an arbitration agreement upon employment wherever it is legal to do so.

    Critics view arbitration as a secretive system that makes it harder for employees and prospective hires to find out how companies treat their workers, and what happened to people in previous related cases.

    The Woodfield case against Musk’s X Corp. resembles another proposed class action filed in a San Francisco federal court.


    The original article contains 431 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    $3 million is to $1 billion like $3 is to $1000.

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