Layoffs at Twitter in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover of the tech company disproportionately — and illegally — targeted women, according to a new class-action lawsuit.

In a complaint filed Wednesday by Carolina Bernal Strifling and Willow Wren Turkal, the former employees say that women were deliberately targeted for firing after Musk took the helm in October, and are asking a court to stop Twitter from conditioning any potential severance offer on signing a nondisclosure agreement or releases.

“The mass termination of employees at Twitter has impacted female employees to a much greater extent than male employees – and to a highly statistically significant degree,” the complaint says. “Moreover, Elon Musk has made a number of publicly discriminatory remarks about women, further confirming that the mass termination’s greater impact on female employees resulted from discrimination. Musk also quickly implemented new policies at Twitter that would have a disparate impact on women, thus forcing more women to leave the company.”

“Twitter has stated that it will be sending severance agreements to certain terminated or constructively discharged employees shortly,” the complaint continues. “Plaintiffs are very concerned that employees will be asked to sign away their rights without notice that they have legal claims of discrimination and that these legal claims have already been filed on their behalf.”

The complaint notes that Musk has been “widely criticized for sexist,...

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