Excessive influence held by former worker (10)

I believe the answer is:

exorbitant

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'excessive' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'influence held by former worker' is the wordplay.
'influence' becomes 'orbit' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'held by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'former' becomes 'ex' (prefix meaning former or onetime).
'worker' becomes 'ant' (worker is a type of ant).
'ex'+'ant'='exant'
'orbit' inserted within 'exant' is 'EXORBITANT'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for exorbitant that I've seen before include "Unreasonable" , "overpriced" , "Exceeding the bounds of reason" , "going beyond the limits?" , "High cost" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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