As Twitter employees face mass layoffs starting today, a group of them has sued new overlord Elon Musk for not giving proper termination notice under federal and California law.
The suit — read it here — comes as the platform has seen “a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers,” Musk said.
The lawsuit seeking class action status was filed in the Northern District of California in San Francisco by Emmanuel Cornet, Justine De Caires, Grae Kindel, Alexis Camacho, and Jessica Pan “individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated” against Twitter “for its violation and anticipated further violation” of federal law.
Cornet was terminated Nov. 1 without advanced written warning. Plaintiffs De Caires, Pan and Kindel were locked out of their Twitter accounts on Nov. 3, “which they understood to signal that they were being laid off.” The suit said the federal WARN Act and the California WARN Act require 60 days advance written notice of a mass layoff.
“Plaintiffs are very concerned that Twitter will continue these layoffs without providing the requisite notice,” it said.
As much as 50% of the company’s staff may be laid off with notifications starting to arrive today.
Meanwhile, Musk took to Twitter to sound the alarm about advertising.
General Mills, Audi and others confirmed in recent days that they’ve paused advertising on Twitter after Musk’s ascension. The deal close last week saw an upsurge in derogatory content and sowed doubt about future moderation policies under new ownership. Musk has said that he’d take a more hands off approach to moderation and that he doesn’t believe in permanent bans, including of former President Donald Trump.
Musk, who named himself as sole director after dissolving the board and booting top executives, announced plans to set up a committee to evaluate moderation policies and promised no new steps or changes until that body takes stock. But his attempts to appease Madison Avenue are meeting with pushback, which he blames on “activists.” He reiterated in a tweet today that “nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists. Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.”
Influential Hollywood players and others have left or threatened to leave the platform.
Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion, with the company taking on major debt. A revenue drop is the opposite of what Twitter needs. Advertising is its main source of revenue. Layoffs will cut costs. But the shape of Twitter as a business is becoming less clear day by day.
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