Twitter: The number of staff suing goes up every day - lawyers

Twitter: The number of staff suing goes up every day - lawyers

The number of fired Twitter staff who launched legal action against the company is "going up every day", according to a lawyer representing some of them.

Lisa Bloom told the BBC she had worked on the cases of around 100 former employees but the number was increasing.

One of his clients, Amir Shevat, told the BBC that Twitter boss Elon Musk had "failed" at leading the company.

Twitter did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

In an interview with the BBC's World Service Tech Tent program, Shevat recalled the hard times on Twitter after Musk's $44 billion (£39.3 billion) takeover in November.

Mr Shevat is head of product for the Twitter developer platform, which is responsible for around 150 staff.

He said almost his entire team was laid off for one night.

"We got emails saying there was some sort of restructuring and then what happened is, I communicated with my team, and one by one they told me their computer was 'broken,'" he said.

"Bricked is the process of turning a computer into something that's more like a brick - so you can't log in, you can't do anything with it."

He added: "It was a very, very difficult experience that left a lot of engineers, who really care about the company, very discouraged."

About half of Twitter's workforce of 8,000 were laid off when Musk took over.

At the time, Musk warned the company was losing money at an alarming rate and was on a "fast track to bankruptcy", though he has since said that it is now moving in a "good direction" after the cuts.

Mr Shevat joined Twitter in 2021 when his startup called Reshuffle was acquired by the social media network.

He is now entering arbitration proceedings with his former employer, represented by attorney Ms Bloom.

He told the BBC he represented about 100 laid-off Twitter staffers in the US, but "the number is going up every day".

Ms Bloom added there were various claims including alleged breach of contract and discrimination.

'awkward' experience

The laid-off employees in the UK are also pursuing legal action, while workers at Twitter's only African office in Ghana also hired legal representatives.

When the takeover took place in November, Shevat walked into an "all hands" meeting hosted by Musk, which he described as an "awkward" experience.

"We're trying to get him to tell us what he wants with the company and what his direction is. And his answers aren't 100% spot on but they're not particularly inspiring either," he said.

"For example, when we asked him: 'what's the future of Twitter?' He replied that he thought we would help him get to Mars. I don't know how to connect creating a social app to getting to Mars."

Twitter is just one of a number of major tech companies that have made mass layoffs in recent months, with the likes of Amazon, Meta and Microsoft also making cuts.

Mr Shevat said he was not "rejecting downsizing", but rather the way it was done on Twitter.

"The way to do it is in a legal, empathetic and very communicative way. And in all of that Elon failed in his leadership," he said.

Mr Shevat told the BBC that workers were initially promised four months' salary as severance pay by Twitter, but were ultimately offered only one month - with "no justification" for a reduction in the package.

He described Mr Musk's treatment of staff as "unjustifiable" and added he was "concerned" about the future of Twitter.

"We wanted to make people's lives more enjoyable and more productive. And all of that went to waste when Elon bought the company," he said.

Resource : Twitter: Number of staff suing goes up daily - lawyer - BBC News