Women laid off from Twitter say Elon Musk tweeted 'Testosterone rocks ngl' weeks after they were let go, new discrimination lawsuit alleges

• Former Twitter employees filed a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk of sex, race, and age discrimination.
• The lawsuit said it wasn't surprising that more women were laid off than men given Musk's sexism.

A group of former Twitter employees filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing the platform's owner, Elon Musk, of sex, race, and age discrimination.

The seven plaintiffs all worked for Twitter, now known as X, until November 2022, when the company initiated major layoffs following Musk's acquisition earlier in the year. The lawsuit, which was obtained by Insider, was first reported by Rolling Stone.

The lawsuit alleges some employees were laid off after either taking or preparing to take family or medical leave. It also alleges that the layoffs disproportionately impacted women, Black employees, and employees aged 50 and older.

"The fact that more women than men were laid off is not surprising given Musk's history of making sexist, demeaning, and hostile comments against women," the lawsuit said, going on to cite examples of "discriminatory and demeaning comments" made by Musk.

The lawsuit notes that within weeks of the layoffs, Musk tweeted on December 4, "Testosterone rocks, ngl," using the abbreviation for "not gonna lie." Musk was responding to another tweet referencing director James Cameron's view that testosterone is a "toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system."

This is not the first time Musk and X have been hit with similar accusations.

In December 2022, two women who lost their jobs at Twitter filed a lawsuit claiming that the company's layoffs "impacted female employees to a much greater extent than male employees." The suit was dismissed in May by US District Judge Jon Tigar, who said the plaintiffs should have resolved the complaint through federal agencies first.

In March, Musk also had to apologize to a former Twitter employee after baselessly accusing him of using his disability as an "excuse" to do "no actual work."

And in April, Musk's electric vehicle company Tesla was ordered to pay $3.2 million in damages to a Black employee. The employee accused Tesla in 2017 of failing to prevent the racist abuse he faced while working at the company's Fremont plant.

Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.