Twitter has had to tell staff its email about their severance agreement 'is not a phishing attempt' after many went straight to spam

• Twitter has had to reassure laid-off staff that an email about severance agreements was genuine.
• The email was sent from an external address and redirected them to a website.

Twitter has had to clarify to staff that the email they received with their severance agreements "is not a phishing attempt."

The social-media giant laid off thousands of workers on November 4, a week after Elon Musk took control of the company. Two months later, hundreds of these workers finally got their separation contracts with information on severance pay.

But the email alerting them to this was flagged as spam for many of the recipients, Insider's Kali Hays reported. The email was sent from "twitterseparation@cptgroup.com" in the early hours of Saturday and contained login information for a CPT Group website, where they could view their full separation agreements.

Twitter has since reassured laid-off staff that the email was genuine.

"We are writing to confirm that we have engaged a third party, CPT Group, to assist with the distribution of Twitter Separation Agreements in the United States," a follow-up email, sent by a Twitter HR address on Saturday, reads. The email, viewed by Insider, was titled "Your Twitter Separation Agreement" and said former staff had been sent an email by CPT Group with the login needed to access their separation agreement online.

"This email was an official company communication and is not a phishing attempt," the follow-up email reads. "If you did not receive your agreement by email, please check your spam folder." People should contact twitterseparation@cptgroup.com if they had any questions or hadn't received an email with a login, Twitter said.

CPT Group, which is based in Irvine, California, describes itself as a "leading provider of notice and settlement class action administration services."

"If you were wondering about the current state of twitter, many folks just received their separation agreements in their spam folders, pointing to a URL that was registered this morning from a vendor with a 1 star BBB rating," former Twitter employee Parker Lyons tweeted on Saturday. He was referring to CPT Group's poor rating on the Better Business Bureau website. "If still there, I would have reported this as phishing."

Twitter and CPT Group did not respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside of normal working hours.

Frustrated former Twitter workers had been waiting for two months to get their separation packages, and many say they were disappointed by what the company ultimately offered them. The contracts offer one month of severance pay in return for former workers agreeing not to participate in lawsuits against Twitter or speak publicly about the company.

Musk had previously said that people who left the company would be given three months of severance. However, he appeared to be including the two months of "non-working employment," during which workers were still paid while they waited for severance.