Twitter violated contract by failing to pay millions in bonuses, US judge rules | Hacker News Reader

Twitter violated contract by failing to pay millions in bonuses, US judge rules

reuters.com

77 pointsmfiguiere29 comments

> Twitter's lawyers argued that the company made only an oral promise that was not a contract

This is what is known as "vigorous representation": Twitter's lawyers would of course know that offer, acceptance, and consideration produce a contract, but if their client wants them to say something stupid, they have to do it...

Surprised there isn't some more complex argument they could make if they are high paid lawyers....

I mean, if you say you’ll pay someone something under certain conditions, they meet the conditions, and you don’t pay, er, there’s no complexity there. Particularly if you are a company.

Yeah, but there is always some technicality... Eg. The person who made the offer wasn't authorized to speak on behalf of the company...

Most contracts I've seen have a clause in them saying that the agreements are final and any modifications have to be in writing and signed by whomever to modify the agreement. I have no idea if there's one like that in play here, but, it's not necessarily a bad argument depending on the particular situation.

What’s the point in seeing this through then — ultimately a lawsuit just delays the inevitable and will be more costly for Twitter considering legal fees.

Is Twitter buying time ?

> just delays the inevitable

We all recall how Musk wound up owning TWTR, right?

Reuters messed up the headline and lede. Per their own article, that is not at all what the judge ruled:

> In denying Twitter's motion to dismiss the case, US District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that Mr Schobinger plausibly stated a breach of contract claim under California law and he was covered by a bonus plan.

Twitter's lawyers filed to have the suit dismissed and the judge rejected the motion. The case is still ongoing, and no decisions were made about the outcome of the case itself, merely that it will be allowed to proceed.

During the layoffs, I've seen some commenters here express that any agreements were to the previous owners and since Musk is a new owner taking over the company, those previous agreements are no longer valid. This was with respect to severance packages. It'll be interesting to see what kind of reaction this gets this time around.

This is a prima facie absurd view of buyouts; if this were actually how things worked it would be fiscally irresponsible to lend money to any corporation (because the ownership might change, absolving them of their debt), for example.

Or, succinctly: the owners of my bank made an agreement that I can withdraw my money at any time without fee. Should new owners suddenly be able to ignore that agreement? Impose fees? Perhaps even simply deny me the ability to withdraw money at all? I would hope the answer from any reasonable person would be a resounding "No."

I sense a great deal of passion in your comment. Has this issue impacted your life in the past?

I sense a great deal of sarcasm and a lack of constructive criticism in your comment. Has this issue impacted your life in the past?

It’s… not an issue! To be clear, a change of ownership does absolutely not get a company out of its obligations. That is not how it works, at all.

what on earth are you talking about?

the agreements were with the company, the company having a new set of owners obviously doesn't let it unilaterally ditch al existing agreements.

That much is obvious. Where did I ever say that I also held that opinion?

> During the layoffs, I've seen some commenters here express that any agreements were to the previous owners and since Musk is a new owner taking over the company, those previous agreements are no longer valid. This was with respect to severance packages.

Those commenters were, at best, extremely confused. This isn’t feudalism; their contracts are with the _company_, not the ‘owner’.

This is why a company is a “person” and it’s own legal entity. To abstract ownership from responsibility

It's hard to imagine worse mismanagement than this. The amount of arrogance signals that no one should ever trust Musk's word again.

There are those who I respect who said that Musk built great companies, at least in the past. But now I wonder, how much is Musk and how much is it that Musk just raised a ton of money and the companies were run by people way smarter and more competent than him? And now, in his latest fits of, well, whatever this is, he can't even bother to grift off their better judgement?

Such a shame. So much wasted empire for no good reason.

> But now I wonder, how much is Musk and how much is it that Musk just raised a ton of money and the companies were run by people way smarter and more competent than him?

It is quite obvious that the more involved he gets in his companies, the more they fail, Twitter being the most obvious example, but SpaceX and Tesla both do as well as they do despite him, not because of him. He was able to moderate his ego better for those companies due to being less unhinged from reality earlier in his life, when he was putting more of his time into those companies.

He didn't moderate his ego. The people at these companies built a system of advisors to manage their CEO the way that a kingdom with a 5-year-old king used to. He stormed into Twitter without letting them build that up, and now we're seeing the effects.

My take on the man is that his value was both as a salesman (with the overpromising and hype building), as well as the dictator who could cut through analysis paralysis by committee (a la Steve Jobs).

I think it served him well for Tesla and SpaceX but without shielding from his own worst impulses (as in Twitter and Cybertruck at Tesla), his reputation has been squandered.

Add that his social media interaction which has diminished him in the eyes of all but his acolytes....

Steve knew the value of communication and respect, and when to give it and when not to, and how that strategically applied to Apple as a company. Elon knows none of these things - ego is his north star.

Thank you. It is hard not to be labeled as an Apple fan boy when I posit Musk and Jobs do not belong in the same category. Jobs made the point repeatedly about encouraging differences in opinins. Musk behaves as he's only surrounded by sycophants. He's high on his own hype.

My only comparison was that where most companies have layers of management and committees that deliver accordingly, both were able to cut through with their decrees.

It served Musk well earlier but Twitter has shown that he was lucky. It will be interesting to see how the Cybertruck fiasco impacts his ability to lead Tesla.

Agreed. The only thing that Musk shares with Jobs is that he could make a decree and it would happen, as well as a sense of showmanship.

It's easy to shit on Musk (and I'm happy to do it), but I think it's important to recognize past contributions for what they are. I have zero respect for him otherwise.

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