SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — X, formerly known as Twitter, faces another lawsuit from a former top official who claims that the company owes him more than $20 million in stock option payouts after dissolving its board of directors.
Omid Kordestani claims, in a new lawsuit filed Friday in San Francisco Superior Court, that the social media giant breached its contract with him. He demands $23 million in damages and a jury trial, claiming that as Twitter’s former Executive Chairman of Twitter and a former member of Twitter’s Board of Directors, and X Corp. owes him equity interest for his years of service.
"X Corp. has no explanation for its failure to satisfy its payment obligations," Kordestani writes. "X Corp. seeks to reap the benefits of Mr. Kordestani’s seven years of service to Twitter without paying him for it, despite clear contractual language requiring X Corp. to do so. X Corp. must pay plaintiff in full for his equity interest in Twitter."
He claims that X’s payout obligation for his vested stock options amounts to $20.1 million, along with $246,122 for his unvested options.
Kordestani, an Atherton, Calif. resident, says that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in October 2022 triggered the company’s obligation to pay him and others for their vested and unvested stock options. He said that X now refuses to meet those obligations, along with many other complaints of non–payment from other employees, landlords and vendors.
Kordestani writes in the suit that X never explained why it hasn’t paid him, despite his seven years of service. He says that since 2015, he helped grow Twitter’s annual revenue by approximately $1.5 billion and played a major role in the evolution of Twitter’s board and executive management team.
"Mr. Kordestani sought to obtain the payment owed to him without court intervention, including by reaching out to X Corp. and its counsel on multiple occasion," the plaintiff said in his filing Friday. "X Corp. refused to discuss this matter substantively with Mr. Kordestani or his counsel and failed to acknowledge the effect of the terms of its agreements with Mr. Kordestani."
A representative of X could not be reached for comment.
Kordestani has also sought payment in his previous role at Google, joining litigation in 2015 claiming that he and other shareholders lost money because directors refused to recruit better talent away from other tech giants through reciprocal, anticompetitive "handshake" agreements.
Since his Twitter takeover, Musk has faced a string of recent lawsuits, including several from fired Twitter workers, some of which have been settled. Last month, a judge threw out another suit from workers who claimed Musk owed them $500 million.
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