“If you receive a late paycheck, California Labor Code 210 requires employers to pay a penalty of $100 for an initial violation.”

Severely is overselling it.

Its $100 if it is both a first offense and not willful. For any willful or intentional delay, or a second or subsequent late paycheck regardless of willfulness, the penalty is $200 plus 25% of the payment that was due.

(And if any terminal paychecks are late, there are greater penalties – waiting time penalties equal to an average days pay for each day of delay up to 30 days – though I don’t recall if there is a wilfullness condition or modification to that.)

The link I found undersells it, too. In some cases, the corporate veil can be pierced and executives can be made personally liable.

That's for "not willful."

Except Musk has established precedent at Twitter that you can just fire employees for cause.

1) California employment is at-will, employees can always be fired.

2) What on earth does this have to do with running payroll late?

On 1), you actually have even higher obligations to pay IMMEDIATELY if you fire someone, including for all other money owed (accumulated vacation/sick days, etc.)

> Except Musk has established precedent at Twitter that you can just fire employees for cause.

“Established precedent” is…not a fair description of action which is being challenged in the courts, where no precedential legal decision has been made.

Also, firing employees would just make the California rule requiring immediate payment of final paychecks, with waiting penalties of 1 days pay for day of delay up to 30 days, applicable, as well as triggering other time-sensitive legal obligations that a company without access to cash might not want.

Plus, it means that once you get access to your cash again, you don’t have the employees (and might have a lot less positive image in the community you would want to hire from to replace them.)

This is somewhat disputable, but regardless, it has nothing to do with delayed payments.