Elon Musk faces class-action suit over mass Twitter layoffs
Amid Twitter beginning mass layoffs, the company employees are launching a class-action lawsuit against the new Twitter CEO, Elon Musk.
According to multiple sources, Musk started massive layoffs at Twitter on Nov. 4, reducing the company’s workforce of 7,500 people. The CEO was speculated to cut as much as 50% of Twitter’s staff, or about 3,500 people, just a few days after acquiring Twitter for $44 billion on Oct. 27.
In response to the layoffs, Twitter employees filed a class-action lawsuit against Musk in San Francisco federal court, Bloomberg reported. The suit argues that Twitter is violating federal and California laws by laying off employees without enough notice.
The action specifically refers to the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which restricts large companies from mounting mass layoffs without at least 60 days of advance notice.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney who filed the class-action lawsuit on Nov. 3, said that all Twitter employees should be aware of their rights. The employees “should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights,” the attorney noted.
Liss-Riordan is known for also suing Musk’s electric vehicles firm Tesla over similar claims in June 2022, when Musk cut about 10% of its workforce. Tesla eventually won the case in closed-door arbitration instead of in open court, while Musk reportedly described the Tesla lawsuit as “trivial.”
“It appears that he’s repeating the same playbook of what he did at Tesla,” Liss-Riordan stated.
The layoffs are part of many changes taking place at Twitter amid Musk’s takeover, including paid account verification. According to reports, Twitter will start charging for Twitter verification starting on Nov.
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