Women who lost their jobs at Twitter are suing billionaire Elon Musk in federal court alleging that the mass layoffs targeted female employees.
Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter when billionaire Elon Musk took over are suing the company in federal court. (Photo: AP)
By India Today Web Desk: Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter when Elon Musk took over are suing the company in US court, claiming that the abrupt mass layoffs disproportionately affected female employees.
The mass layoff began days after Musk, the world’s richest man, bought the social media platform for $44 billion. Twitter informed about half of employees on November 4 that they no longer have a job but would get three months severance.
Now two women have filed a lawsuit against the mass layoffs that they allege targeted female employees. The lawsuit filed in a San Francisco federal court alleges that 57% of female employees were laid off, compared to fewer than half of men, despite Twitter employing more men overall before the layoffs.
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The lawsuit alleges that also disproportionately harmed women, “who are more often caregivers for children and other family members, and thus not able to comply with such demands,” AP reported.
The lawsuit was filed by former employees Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal on behalf of similarly-situated female workers.
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“The mass termination of employees at Twitter has impacted female employees to a much greater extent than male employees – and to a highly statistically significant degree,” Liss-Riordan wrote.
“Moreover, Elon Musk has made a number of publicly discriminatory remarks about women, further confirming that the mass termination’s greater impact on female employees resulted from discrimination,” she added.
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The layoffs continued throughout November as Elon Musk fired engineers who questioned or criticized him and gave all remaining employees the choice to resign with severance or sign a form pledging “extremely hardcore” work, long hours and dedication to Twitter’s new direction. Many more resigned after the ultimatum.
(With inputs from AP)