Anyone Working For Elon Musk (Or Anyone Else For That Matter) Should Probably Run Their Contracts Through This Right Now

(Photo by Diego Donamaria/Getty Images for SXSW)

Remember when Elon Musk was a gilded boy wonder who could do no wrong? Yeah, neither do we. After mortally botching the merger agreement to make his online goof into a $44B reality, Musk enjoyed the greatest destruction of wealth in human history. Twitter's transition to a TaaS company (Trolling as a Service) has hemorrhaged cash and users, while Musk has gone around trying to publicly fire a guy with muscular dystrophy for doing "no actual work."

As you might imagine... this did not work out for Elon.

Haha this dude just got Elon to fire him publically, trip a termination buy out clause in his $100M contract as an acquired founder, and sunk Musk to his eyeballs in employment law liability.

Might be the best outro if all time.

-- banjo finn (@SimplePhishin) March 7, 2023

Most Twitter employees do not enjoy a $100 million severance clause. But there are a lot of Twitter employees getting laid off and Twitter has made some promises about severance that are, shall we say, not materializing at the moment.

Since everyone at Twitter exists in a modified Schrodinger's Cat scenario as both employed and unemployed until the probability wave collapses upon the 50-50 shot of Musk approving of the latest Bored Ape, now might be a good time to discover what's really in your contracts.

As it happens, Zuva, the artificial intelligence-driven contract analysis tool, just dropped a new option this week that can help employees -- at Twitter or anywhere else -- figure that out. And it's totally free! Zuva created a widget allowing folks to drag over a contract and leverage the technology behind Zuva's commercial grade tools. Here's a version for severance agreements.

There's a whole set up to this announcement video that you can check out, but this embed jumps to a bit where you can quickly see the product in action:

While law firms ultimately will want the more robust version, there's a lot of marketing potential in the free option. Put out a post about, say, "things you should know about non-compete agreements" and let potential clients run their contracts through and decide, "oh, wow, I really need to call this lawyer now."

Presumably, Halli Thorleifsson was well aware of the $100 million severance clause in his deal, but most folks don't know as much about what's in their deals. Those are the folks who might sit on their rights out of ignorance. Artificial intelligence might not be replacing lawyers any time soon, but it might be a good way of connecting lawyers to clients.

Earlier: If The Wrongful Termination Lawsuit Doesn't Get Elon Musk, The Dip In Stock Will
Twitter Complaint Demonstrates That Every Lawyer, Everywhere, Always Is Smarter Than Elon Musk

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you're interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.