Ex-employees sue Twitter for alleged gender discrimination in layoffs after Musk takeover

Two former Twitter employees on Wednesday filed a class action lawsuit against the social media company alleging that its recent mass layoffs disproportionally affected female employees.

Driving the news: This is the latest lawsuit stemming from the mass layoffs that followed Elon Musk's takeover of the company.

Details: The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco federal court by former employees Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal on behalf of themselves and "other female Twitter employees across the country."

• The mass layoffs "impacted female employees to a much greater extent than male employees," the lawsuit stated.
• "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," it added.

The big picture: The lawsuit alleged that in the "chaotic weeks" since Musk took over Twitter, the company laid off 57% of its female employees compared to 47% of its male employees.

• "Not only is this a large percentage difference, but it is also extremely statistically significant," the lawsuit stated.
• The disparity was even greater in engineering-related roles, according to the lawsuit. Twitter laid off 63% of women in engineering roles compared to 48% of men in similar roles, it alleged.
• The lawsuit claims that the layoffs violated both federal and California state laws against workplace discrimination.

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