Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter after Elon Musk took over are suing the company, saying recent layoffs have disproportionately affected female employees.
About half of the social media network workforce was let go at the beginning of last month after Mr. Musk bought the company for $44 billion.
He then told those who remained that they should work at “high intensity”.
“Going forward, to build a revolutionary Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore,” he said in a post.
“It will mean long hours at high intensity. Only outstanding performance will be a passing grade.”
The lawsuit alleges that these requirements disproportionately affect women “who are more often caregivers for children and other family members, and therefore unable to comply with these requirements.”
The lawsuit, filed for former employees Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal, claims that 57% of female employees were terminated on Nov. 4, compared to 47% of male employees, citing a spreadsheet.
For women in engineering-related positions, the gap would have been even greater, with 63% layoffs, compared to 48% for men.
The suit was filed by prominent workers’ rights lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan.
“The mass layoff of employees at Twitter had a far greater impact on women than on men – and to a highly statistically significant degree,” Liss-Riordan wrote.
Willow Wren Turkal is one of the women suing Twitter. Photo: AP
Speaking in federal court in San Francisco, Ms Liss-Riordan said she wanted to show that “the richest man in the world is not above the law”.
She added: “We submit that the arbitration agreements (signed by Twitter staff) are not binding.
“But if we have to go through arbitration one by one, we are ready to do so.”
Twitter has yet to respond to a request for comment from Sky News.
Earlier this week it was reported that rooms have been installed at the Twitter offices in San Francisco.
