- Private Jet Services filed a lawsuit against Twitter over an unpaid bill of nearly $200,000 last December.
- On Tuesday, Twitter said that the jet company overcharged it and the flights were unauthorized.
- The social-media company can be facing lawsuits alleging it hasn’t paid rent on several offices.
Twitter is fighting back against a non-public jet company which filed a lawsuit against the social-media company over an unpaid $197,725 bill.
The social-media company accused Private Jet Services of overcharging it for 2 flights in the times before Elon Musk’s takeover was accomplished, in line with court documents seen by Insider, which were filed Tuesday within the Recent Hampshire District Court.
Twitter said within the documents that it was sent one invoice for $103,850 on October 26, and one for $93,875 on October 27, totalling $197,725, which it said was well above market rate.
It also continuously referred within the documents to being billed $194,000 by Private Jet Services, but didn’t explain the discrepancy in figures.
“Market rate for next-day private air charter services, roundtrip, coast-to-coast on midsize jets are estimated at $70,000 to $96,000, and on large jets, $88,000 to $156,000,” Twitter’s lawyers said in a motion to dismiss the case.
“These ranges are substantially lower than the $194,000 total invoices PJS sent Twitter.”Â
When the suit was first filed in December 2022, Insider reported how Twitter’s one-time chief marketing officer, Leslie Berland, took two flights between Recent Jersey and San Francisco in late October. Per Bloomberg, Berland was a primary contact for Elon Musk as he closed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter on October 27.
In June 2022, she also moderated Musk’s first conversation with Twitter staff, in line with Insider’s Kali Hays. Since leaving Twitter amid mass layoffs, Berland has taken on the CMO role at fitness company Peloton.
Within the documents filed Tuesday, and previously in December, Twitter said that the flights weren’t arranged by considered one of 4 employees at the corporate designated to achieve this.
Bloomberg reported that the workers named within the court filings as arranging the flights were the chief assistants of Berland, and Twitter’s then-CEO, Parag Agrawal.
Twitter says that it believes the jet company breached this agreement over “designated representatives,” and as such the lawsuit ought to be dismissed.
Greg Raiff, CEO of Private Jet Services, told Bloomberg: “Suffice it to say, we offered Twitter a price, they agreed to the value, after which they decided afterwards they didn’t need to pay.”
Twitter can be facing a $2 million lawsuit from a consulting firm which says it wasn’t paid for work related to Musk’s hesitation over buying the platform. Additionally it is facing legal motion over alleged unpaid rent on its London office, which is owned by King Charles III’s Crown Estate.
Private Jet Services and Twitter didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment from Insider.