The case involves 6 employees of X in Australia.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, X Corp., Elon Musk’s company, is demanding money from at least six former Australian employees who were fired, on the grounds that the company accidentally paid them more than the legal limit. determined.

The report said ” X is threatening to take a number of former Australian employees to court, demanding that they return money that the company believes was overpaid due to an error in the currency conversion process from USD to AUD (US$). la Australian).”

Emails sent out this year by X’s Asia Pacific human resources department to laid-off employees said there was a mistake that led to overpayment of wages in January 2023. The amount of overpayment is said to range from A$1,500 to A$70,000 per employee.

As of now, no former employee has returned the money, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. One Australian dollar is currently worth approximately 0.67 US dollars.

“The company said the overpayments were related to ‘deferred bonuses’ in the form of employee shares issued to them when they joined Twitter,” the article said. “These shares are valued at 54.20 USD (82 AUD) each, the price at which Musk bought Twitter in 2022, and the total number of shares employees receive is based on their tenure at the company. “

X Corp. allegedly made a currency conversion error when employees were paid severance payments. According to one account, X paid stock bonuses at a conversion rate of 2.5 times the value of the stock.

The report said X asked the fired employees to repay the money at the most convenient time and said the company had the right to ask the court to return the money with interest.

Labor law expert Hayden Stephens says X’s former employees could be forced to pay back the money, but they should first ask X for a clear explanation of how the error occurred and request documentary evidence support. If it was a genuine mistake, usually under Australian employment law the employee is obliged to repay the money.