Two female employees who lost their jobs at Twitter when Elon Musk took over are suing the firm in a US court, saying that the sudden mass layoffs unfairly impacted female workers.
Days after Musk, the richest man in the world, paid $44 billion to purchase the social networking site, a mass layoff started. Twitter informed nearly half of staff on November 4 that they no longer have a job but will earn three months severance.
Now two women have launched a lawsuit against the mass layoffs that they believe 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.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.“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.
Elon Musk has also made a number of overtly discriminatory comments about women, which she said “further confirms that the mass termination’s higher impact on female employees was the product of discrimination.”
Elon Musk dismissed engineers who questioned or criticised him, and all remaining employees were given the option to resign with severance pay or sign a contract committing “very rigorous” effort, long hours, and dedication to Twitter’s new path. The layoffs continued into November. Many more resigned after the ultimatum.