Twitter accused of targeting women in layoffs in new lawsuit

Two women who lost their jobs after Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover of Twitter have sued the company alleging the layoffs disproportionately affected female employees.

The world’s richest person immediately fired Twitter’s top executives when he took over in October, and a week later, fired half the company’s 7,500 staff.

The discrimination lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco on Wednesday, according to Reuters. It stated that Twitter laid off 57 per cent of its female staff, compared to 47 per cent of men at the company.

And the disparity was even greater among Twitter’s engineers, where 63 per cent of women were laid off, compared to 48 per cent of men, the lawsuit claimed.

Twitter is accused by the two plaintiffs of violating both federal and California laws banning sex discrimination in the workplace.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said women at the company “had targets on their backs” once the billionaire finally closed his deal for Twitter after months of trying to get out of it.

She also represents a string of former and current Twitter employees in three other pending lawsuits filed in the same court.

Among the claims are that Mr Musk and Twitter forced out employees with disabilities by ending remote work and demanding workers accept a more “hardcore” work culture.

There have also been at least three complaints against the company filed with the US National Labor Relations Board, claiming they faced retaliation for calling for better working conditions.