Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter after Elon Musk took over are suing the company, claiming that recent layoffs have disproportionately affected female employees.
About half of social media network employees are let go early last month After Mr. Musk bought the company for $44 billion.
He then told the rest that they needed to “high strength”.
“Going forward, we will need to be very stubborn to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world,” he said in a message.
“It will mean working long hours at a high level of intensity. Only outstanding performance will constitute a passing grade.”
Lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan (former) claimed female employees suffered more layoffs than male employees.Photo: Associated Press
The demands disproportionately affect women, “who are often the caregivers of children and other family members and therefore cannot meet these demands,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit, filed by former employees Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal, cites a spreadsheet that said 57 percent of female employees were fired on Nov. 4, compared with 47 percent of male employees.
The gap is even wider for women in engineering-related roles, with 63% of women being fired compared to 48% of men, it said.
The lawsuit was filed by Shannon Liss-Riordan, a prominent workers’ rights attorney.
Ms. Liss-Riordan wrote: “The mass layoffs of Twitter employees affected female employees significantly more than male employees and were statistically highly significant.”
Willow Wren Turkal is one of the women who smoke Twitter.Photo: Associated Press
Speaking outside San Francisco federal court, Ms Liss-Riordan said she wanted to show that “the richest man in the world is not above the law.”
She added: “What we’re arguing is that the arbitration agreement (signed by Twitter employees) is unenforceable.
“But if we have to go through arbitrations one by one, we’re ready.”
Twitter has not yet responded to Sky News’ request for comment.
According to reports earlier this week bedroom has been installed At Twitter’s San Francisco office.