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• Laid-off Twitter employees are suing the company saying they were promised a range of severance benefits.
• The lawsuit says they were assured these benefits would hold after Elon Musk bought Twitter.
• However, recently laid-off employees say Twitter reneged on the promised severance pay.

Laid-off Twitter employees suing the social media platform say the company — now owned by Elon Musk — reneged on previously promised severance benefits.

Five employees — who filed a class-action suit against Twitter on November 1 — now say they were promised at least two month’s severance pay, bonus plan compensation, cash value of vested Twitter equity, and healthcare coverage, but these promises were not kept when Musk laid off about 3,700 staffers on November 4.

The fresh allegations were made in updated court filings to the San Francisco federal court on Tuesday, which were also seen by Insider. 

According to the Tuesday update, Twitter’s management previously said at several all-hands meetings, wrote in a recent FAQ, and stated in a merger agreement that employees would get at least the equivalent of the originally promised package if they were laid off after Musk acquired the company. 

Twitter employees “reasonably relied” on this promise in the weeks leading up to Musk’s purchase and chose not to look for jobs elsewhere, the lawsuit shows. 

However, Twitter later told employees affected by November’s mass layoffs that they would only get one month’s base pay after their termination, the updated lawsuit alleged.

This claim appears to contrast a November 4 tweet from Musk, which said that all exited employees were offered three months’ severance.

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022

Musk has worked every day to find new ways to screw over Twitter staff, attorney says

In response to queries from Insider, Shannon Liss-Riordan — the attorney who filed the lawsuit — said Musk is counting an extra two months of severance pay because some workers were told on November 4 that they would be laid off in two months’ time.

These employees, which include three of the plaintiffs, were locked out of their company accounts on November 3, but were told they would be paid until January 4, 2023, their lawsuit said.

“This pay is not severance pay,” Liss-Riordan wrote in the lawsuit, accusing Musk of using this period of payment only to comply with federal and state labor laws. The WARN Act, or the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, is a federal law that requires businesses with 100 or more employees to give 60 days advance notice of mass layoffs or other work disruptions.

Liss-Riordan filed an emergency motion on behalf of the five employees on Wednesday evening. It seeks to compel Twitter to tell laid-off employees about the pending lawsuit before it can reach any separation agreements with workers.

The motion accused Twitter of trying to get employees to release all claims on their compensation benefits in exchange for their one month of severance pay.

“Since taking control of Twitter just two weeks ago, it seems Elon Musk has worked every day to find new and creative ways to screw over the company’s workers,” Liss-Riordan said in a statement to Insider. “This emergency motion that we just filed is an effort to protect the employees Twitter is laying off from signing away their rights to get what they are owed by the company.”

Twitter’s former top four executives — Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, and Sarah Personette — stood to gain a collective $88 million from being fired by Musk. On October 31, Musk denied reports that he fired the top executives “for cause” in order to avoid giving them hefty severance payouts.

Musk did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, which was sent after-hours. Twitter’s no longer employs its communications department.

• The manufacturer of the world’s largest cargo plane has announced plans to rebuild the aircraft.
• The Antonov An-225 was destroyed by Russian forces in February. 
• The plane, which is also known as “Mriya,” is said to cost over half a billion dollars to rebuild.

The manufacturer of the largest cargo plane in the world announced plans on November 7 to rebuild the massive aircraft.

Antonov Co., the state-owned Ukrainian manufacturer of the An-225 cargo plane, said in a statement posted on Facebook that design work has begun on a second unit of the aircraft. The An-225, also known as “Mriya,” was destroyed by Russian forces in an airfield near Kyiv in February. The rebuild is currently in the design stage, the company wrote on Facebook.

“According to available expert estimates, currently there are about 30% of components that can be used for the second model of the aircraft,” the company said, adding that the exact details of reconstruction will only be released “after Ukraine wins this war.”

The An-225, which was in service for over 30 years before its destruction, was built in the Soviet era. The aircraft first took flight in 1988. It was built to transport the Soviet spacecraft Buran before being used to charter international cargo flights.

The reconstruction costs of the 330-tonne An-225 are estimated to exceed 500 million euros, or $500 million, according to Antonov’s statement. It’s the heaviest aircraft ever built.

“The work on the machine is ongoing in a secret location,” Eugene Gavrylov, Antonov’s general director, told German newspaper Bild.

Construction of the original An-225 started in Kyiv, but the maintenance and manufacturing of its parts was eventually moved to China.

Ukrainian state defense company Ukroboronprom initially estimated the reconstruction of the aircraft to cost more than $3 billion and said it would take at least five years, according to a company statement on February 27.

Antonov Co. did not explain how the aircraft’s reconstruction would be financed. Gavrylov said the company plans to sell airplane merchandise to obtain additional funds and attract sponsors, per Bild.

Back in February, Ukroboronprom said it expected Russia to finance the rebuild.

• Explore more race results below.
• Rep. Ken Calvert is running against Democrat Will Rollins in California’s 41st Congressional District.
• The 41st District includes the city of Corona, Calvert’s hometown. 
• Calvert, who has a history of opposing same-sex marriage, faces Rollins in a district that includes Palm Springs, a city that has a large LGBTQ community.  

Republican Rep. Ken Calvert faces off against Democrat Will Rollins in California’s 41st Congressional District.

Polls closed in the state at 8 p.m. local time, or 11 p.m. EST.

California’s 41st Congressional District candidates

Calvert is a senior member of the House Committee on Appropriations. First elected to the US House in 1992 to represent California’s 43rd Congressional District, Calvert is the longest-serving Republican of the state’s congressional delegation and one of the most senior members serving in the legislative body. 

Prior to his time in Congress, the Riverside County Republican served in leadership roles with several local community volunteer organizations, including the Corona Chamber of Commerce, the Corona Rotary, and the Corona-Norco Family YMCA. 

Calvert, who clinched former President Donald Trump’s endorsement along with endorsements from the California Republican Party and the state’s entire Republican House delegation, previously opposed same-sex marriage but joined 46 of his GOP colleagues to vote in support of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the right to same-sex marriage in federal law. 

Rollins, Calvert’s challenger, is a former federal prosecutor who focused on counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases in Southern California. He decided to run for Congress after witnessing the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and working on some of the insurrection cases. A gay man, Rollins lives and campaigns with his partner. 

Rollins trailed behind Calvert in the nonpartisan primary, securing 30.4% of the vote to Calvert’s 48.2%. Both men advanced to the general election. A month after the primary, Rollins was added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program, which pumps resources into tight races that national Democratic party leaders believe can be flipped from Republican to Democrat.

Voting history for California’s 41st Congressional District

California’s 41st Congressional District, located in Riverside County, covers a swath of the Coachella Valley and includes Palm Springs, Lake Elsinore, and parts of Corona and Riverside. 

Trump scored a 7 percentage point margin of victory over President Joe Biden under the district’s previous boundaries in 2020 before it was redrawn to excise solid GOP areas and take in a section of the Coachella Valley in redistricting following the 2020 Census, making it competitive and less Republican.

The district lost solid red areas such as Temecula and Murrieta while gaining blue territory, most notably Palm Springs, the first city in America to elect an all-LGBTQ city council. 

The money race

According to OpenSecrets, Calvert has raised more than $3.3 million, spent $3 million, and has $730,000 on hand, as of October 19. His opponent, Rollins, has raised more than $3.3 million, spent more than $2.5 million, and has $755,000 cash on hand.

As of late October, more than a dozen super PACs, national party committees, politically active nonprofits, and other non-candidate groups have together spent more than $900,000 to advocate for or against candidates in this race, including during the race’s primary phase. Most of the spending is in support of Rollins. 

What experts say

The race between Calvert and Rollins is rated as “lean Republican” by The Cook Political Report and “likely Republican” by Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday urged Gov. Ron DeSantis not to run for president in 2024.
• She said that running for the White House would equate to DeSantis abandoning his state.
• “Please support President Trump,” she told DeSantis and any would-be presidential candidates.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday told Florida Governor Ron DeSantis not to compete with former President Donald Trump for the White House, as speculation abounds that the two GOP heavyweights could square off against each other for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

Speaking at a Trump rally in Ohio, Greene urged DeSantis to remain governor of Florida and said running for president meant he would “abandon” his state. Trump was expected to announce a presidential run at Monday’s rally. Instead, he teased a “big announcement” that he’ll be making on November 15.

Discussing Trump’s potential campaign for the White House, Right Side Broadcasting Network host Brian Glenn told Greene at the rally: “If anyone steps into the political ring and tries to challenge President Trump as far as being the Republican nominee for 2024, we feel like it’s political suicide. This is his party, this is his race to run.”

“Absolutely, I think that it’s clear and obvious,” Greene responded.

“What we need in this country, Brian, is we need strong Republican governors like Ron DeSantis,” she later said.

“We need strong Republican governors to fight, stay in for eight years and save their states, not to abandon their states and try to run for president or any other big position,” Greene added.

“My message is for everyone, anyone that’s considering running for president in 2024 against President Trump, please support President Trump,” she said.

DeSantis has in recent months been considered to be a strong frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, though he also hasn’t announce a campaign. Greene’s rhetoric that DeSantis would “abandon” his state by running for president has also been used by his gubernatorial opponent, Democratic nominee Charlie Crist.

When Crist asked DeSantis at a political debate if he would serve a full term if elected governor, DeSantis did not answer the question.

Representatives for Greene and DeSantis did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment.

• Twitter owner Elon Musk said the social platform needs to become “the most accurate source of information.”
• Critics pointed out that Musk shared an inaccurate story about the attack on Paul Pelosi last week.
• Twitter founder Jack Dorsey also weighed in on the conversation.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted that his goal was to make Twitter “the most accurate” media platform, but critics say the billionaire has made decisions on the platform that suggest otherwise. 

“Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world. That’s our mission.” Musk tweeted Sunday evening. He also shared a similar sentiment in a November 2 tweet, in which he said Twitter would become the most accurate news source “without regard to political affiliation.”

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2022

Critics were quick to point out that days earlier Musk had linked to inaccurate news following the October 28 attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, in which an intruder broke into her San Francisco home and struck Paul Pelosi with a hammer. Pelosi was released from the hospital Thursday after being admitted with a skull fracture following the attack.

On October 30, in response to a Hillary Clinton tweet denouncing the attack, Musk shared a link to a website that promoted conspiracy theories about the attack, including one that falsely claimed the attacker was a male prostitute hired by Pelosi. 

“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” Musk replied, linking to a site with the headline, “The Awful Truth: Paul Pelosi Was Drunk Again, And In a Dispute With a Male Prostitute Early Friday Morning.”

Musk later deleted the tweet.

MSNBC journalist and political commentator Mehdi Hasan was one of dozens of accounts on Sunday evening that pointed to Musk’s distribution of the unsubstantiated article.

“Literally a week ago today, Musk posted a link to a fake news website (that once suggested Hillary Clinton was dead and had been replaced by a body double),” Hasan wrote on Twitter. “Worse, he then deleted that tweet without explanation or apology. But sure, his ‘mission’ is accurate information.”

—Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 7, 2022

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey also replied to Musk’s tweet, asking “accurate to who?” 

Musk replied to Dorsey, saying that he would base accuracy on “the people of Twitter via Community Notes,” which is a feature that allows Twitter to add context to posts they consider misleading.

Musk did not provide detailed information on how he plans to improve accuracy on the site.

Dorsey also tweeted that making the site “more informative,” rather than the “most accurate” would be a better goal for the platform.

The notes feature, originally called Birdwatch, has been used on a Musk tweet before. On Friday, users added context to a tweet Musk had shared about “activist groups pressuring advertisers” to pause their ads on Twitter. 

Over the past week, Musk has shared many wide-ranging plans for the platform, including the monetization of creator-made content, a new verification subscription model, and new rules regarding accounts that impersonate other users. 

Representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Elon Musk and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez feuded this week following his takeover of Twitter.
• After actor Mark Ruffalo got involved, Musk told him not to believe everything the lawmaker says.
• Ocasio-Cortez had accused Musk of messing with her account for saying something he didn’t like.

Tesla billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday tweeted at actor Mark Ruffalo not to believe everything Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says, capping off a week of conflict between the congresswoman and Twitter’s new owner.

Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, criticized Musk on Wednesday after he said he planned to start charging Twitter users $8 a month to be verified and for other special features.

“Lmao at a billionaire earnestly trying to sell people on the idea that ‘free speech’ is actually a $8/mo subscription plan,” she tweeted, prompting a brief reply from Musk: “Your feedback is appreciated, now pay $8.”

The feud continued as Musk shared a screenshot of Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign merch with a $58 price tag for a sweatshirt circled. She responded by saying her workers are unionized, calling Musk a “union buster with an ego problem.”

Ocasio-Cortez later said she was “conveniently” having problems with her Twitter account following the exchanges with Musk. In a tweet, she accused Musk of blocking her account for saying something he didn’t like and questioning his stated commitment to free speech.

Mark Ruffalo got involved on Friday, retweeting Ocasio-Cortez and begging Musk to leave Twitter: “Elon. Please—for the love of decency—get off Twitter, hand the keys over to someone who does this as an actual job, and get on with running Tesla and SpaceX. You are destroying your credibility. It’s just not a good look.”

Musk responded on Thursday, turning again to Ocasio-Cortez: “Hot take: not everything AOC says is accurate.”

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2022

Ruffalo, who is also an activist and has advocated for a number of liberal causes over the years, tweeted back: “Maybe so.”

“That’s why having robust filters for dis/misinformation & credible verified users has been a popular feature for people & advertisers alike. We need those safeguards to make sure it’s accurate information, or the app loses credibility, as do you. And people leave,” he said.

Musk and Ocasio-Cortez have frequently clashed in the past, including over unionization and free speech. But other public figures have also expressed concerns over potential changes to content moderation and spoken out against plans to charge $8 per month for the updated Twitter Blue subscription, which was already rolling out as of Saturday.

Earlier in the week, Musk exchanged tweets with author Steven King, who bashed an initial suggestion for the subscription cost to be $20 a month. Other celebrities, including producer Shonda Rhimes and singer Sara Bareilles, announced they were leaving the app shortly after Musk’s takeover last week.

A representative for Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

• Twitter abruptly laid off half its workforce on Friday, one week after Elon Musk took over.
• Employees shared stories about finding out they were axed by being kicked off company platforms.
• One person was in a meeting when they suddenly dropped off the call, sources told The New York Times.

About one week after Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, the company laid off half its workforce, leaving axed employees sharing stories of confusion and chaos over how it all went down.

Top executives were fired last week immediately after Musk took control, but the company’s sweeping layoffs started Friday after a company-wide email sent on Thursday informed staff that some would abruptly lose their jobs the following day. Some employees learned they were fired not through a manager, but because they were kicked off Twitter’s internal systems or locked out of their work laptops without any notice or explanation.

At least one Twitter employee was booted from the company’s system in the middle of a call about Twitter Blue, three sources familiar with the meeting told The New York Times. The group, led by project manager Esther Crawford, was discussing updates to the subscription product and issues when one person just dropped off the call, the sources said.

Musk has been criticized over how the layoffs were handled. Several former Twitter employees filed a lawsuit on Thursday in California accusing Twitter of violating the WARN Act, a federal law that mandates businesses with 100 employees or more to give 60 days notice of mass layoffs.

“This is a master class in how not to do it,” Sandra Sucher, a Harvard University professor who studies layoffs, told the Times, noting it was uncommon to see layoffs of this scale done so rapidly without a clear explanation. “If you were going to rank order ways to upset people, telling them you’re going to do it in advance, without rationale, that is a particularly inhumane way to treat them.”

Rachel Bonn, a former Twitter employee who is eight months pregnant, said she lost access to her work laptop Thursday night hours after Musk said layoffs were coming. Another former Twitter employee, Chris Younie, said he was also abruptly unable to turn on his work laptop or log into his emails at around 3 a.m. on Friday.

In a tweet, Musk said of the layoffs that the company had “no choice” because it was losing more than $4 million per day. He also said that everyone was offered three months of severance pay.

• Twitter staffers are expected to receive an email titled “Your Role at Twitter” by 9 a.m. PST on Friday.
• If their employment is not impacted, they’ll receive a note on their Twitter email, per a Musk memo.
• If their employment is impacted, they will receive a note with next steps via their personal email.

Thousands of Twitter staffers will be finding out if their jobs are affected by Elon Musk’s layoffs on Friday morning at 9 a.m. pacific time.

Per an internal memo which was sent to employees on Thursday, the terms of people’s employment will be sent to either their personal or professional inboxes, Insider’s Kali Hays reported. Those whose employment is affected will be receive notice in their personal emails. Those whose employment is not affected will be notified via their work emails, per Musk’s memo.

Around 3,700 Twitter employees are expected to be hit with Musk’s planned layoffs.

All of the company’s offices are being temporarily closed and all badge access will be suspended, the memo said.

“If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home,” the memo stated. 

Shortly after 8 p.m. PT on Thursday night, some employees started to get locked out Slack and email, Insider reported.

Some employees have already begun updating their professional channels about being impacted by the layoffs, with many of them expressing frustration at having received no communication of their impending departures. 

“I got logged off company Gmail and slack in the evening along with my teammates. No communication or notice whatsoever,” one staffer, whose profile says she worked for Twitter for almost two years, wrote in a LinkedIn post late on Thursday.

Another employee wrote on LinkedIn: “Just got remotely logged out of my company laptop and removed from Twitter Slack. So sad it had to end this way.” The employee had worked as a community manager at Twitter for just over a year, per their profile.

“I had the pleasure of working with amazing Tweeps who showed incredible resilience and compassion during this entire ordeal. This isn’t what we asked for but we made the best of it,” another staff member, a data program manager who had been at the company for eight months, wrote on LinkedIn.

Advice is also pouring in for affected employees.

Lawyer Lisa Bloom tweeted late Thursday: “CA’s “WARN” law requires Twitter to give you 60 days notice of a massive layoff,” adding, “I know you didn’t get that notice.” 

—Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) November 4, 2022

• Twitter plans to cut about half of its workforce following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition.
• It is planning to order staff to return to the office on a full-time basis after layoffs, per Axios.
• The social media company was one of the first to allow staff to work from home indefinitely.

Twitter’s remote work policy could be coming to an end after an impending layoff, Axios reported on Thursday.

The social media giant plans to cut about 3,700 employees soon after Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the platform, Insider’s Kali Hays reported on Thursday. This represents about half of Twitter’s workforce as of late September.

After the cuts, Twitter plans to order its remaining employees to return to the office on a full-time basis, Axios reported, citing sources inside the company. Employees who need to relocate to be near a Twitter office will have as little as 60 days to do so, according to the media outlet.

The move is significant, as Twitter was one of the first companies to implement policies which allowed employees to permanently work remotely, due to the pandemic.

Then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told staff in a May 2020 email with the subject line “#lovewhereyouwork,” that they would be allowed to work from home indefinitely, even after the COVID-19 lockdowns end.

But new Twitter boss Musk is a not a fan of remote work. In May, he issued an ultimatum to executive staff at Tesla — where he is the CEO — telling them to return to the office, or quit.

Musk has been moving rapidly to implement changes at Twitter since finalizing his deal — which he said he was “obviously overpaying” for. He’s finding ways to generate revenue at the social media platform such as charging users to for verification, and has fired the entire board and top execs including former CEO Parag Agrawal.

Twitter did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

• Foxconn denied claims on social media that some of its workers died from COVID in their dormitory.
• Unverified videos circulating online claimed that eight workers died in one dormitory room.
• Foxconn called the footage “maliciously edited,” and said no workers had died at its facility.

Apple’s biggest iPhone maker, Foxconn, has denied claims from videos circulating on social media that some of its workers died from COVID-19 at its plant in Zhengzhou, China.

“Following a detailed investigation into the online video footage alleging ‘deaths at room 726,’ Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn) solemnly clarifies there are no deaths at our facility,” the company said in a statement to Insider.

Foxconn added in its statement that it believed the footage was “maliciously edited.”

The videos, seen by Insider, claim to show workers shouting and protesting confinement in their dormitories, with captions alleging that eight employees died in their shared dormitory room. Foxconn’s Zhengzhou facility employs around 200,000 workers — many of whom are from rural villages and towns — and operates dormitories to house them.

Some of the clips appear to show staff in white protective suits standing in a courtyard surrounded by residential blocks, while wails and yells can be heard.

A compilation of the clips was tweeted by a Chinese dissident, Bloomberg first reported. The video has accrued more than 500,000 views. 

Insider was unable to independently verify the veracity of the videos. 

Huge outcry over Foxconn workers trying to escape prison-like COVID confinement measures

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory recently drew widespread attention on Chinese social media, after videos emerged of its workers climbing fences and walking back to their hometowns to escape prison-like COVID-19 measures at the plant. Insider could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos.

After the videos went viral, Foxconn announced on Sunday that it would arrange vehicle transport for workers who wanted to return home.

The facility adopted a temporary “closed loop system” in mid-October, after a small coronavirus outbreak at the plant.  According to the system, workers have to be transported directly from their dormitories to the factory and back. The system allows the factory to run while attempting to stamp out any trace of the virus, in accordance with Beijing’s strict zero-COVID mandate.

However, it’s also greatly restricted the movement of the workers, who aren’t allowed to leave the premises. Discontent also grew over the risk of food shortages, with only production line employees being given meal boxes while other workers received basic fare like bread or instant noodles, Bloomberg reported.

The outbreak and subsequent developments with Foxconn’s workers could spell trouble for the global supply of iPhones ahead of the holiday season.

The Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer produces an estimated 70% of Apple’s global iPhone shipments, according to Reuters. Production of the iPhone could fall by as much as 30% due to the recent COVID-19 measures, the outlet reported.

Reuters and Bloomberg reported separately this week that Foxconn is raising workers’ wages at the Zhengzhou plant in an attempt to shore up its workforce amid the departures.