A federal judge in San Francisco has once again dismissed a proposed class action alleging that social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, targeted female employees for layoffs when Elon Musk took control of the company. In a written ruling on Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar stated that it was unclear whether the two named plaintiffs in the 2022 lawsuit were actually laid off alongside thousands of other workers that year or if they left the company for other reasons.
Even if the plaintiffs were subjected to layoffs, Tigar noted that they had not alleged that their sex was a motivating factor in their termination. “The amended complaint does not allege anything about the comparative qualifications, experience, job performance, or abilities of any male employees who were not laid off to suggest that similarly situated men were treated more favorably,” Tigar wrote.
This marks the second time Tigar has dismissed the case, but he has granted the plaintiffs three weeks to amend their lawsuit and provide more detailed claims.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. X responded to multiple requests for comment with emails stating, “busy now, please check back later.”
The lawsuit is one of several that former employees filed following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, which led to layoffs affecting about 75% of its workforce. Other cases accuse the company of failing to give employees and contractors advance notice of layoffs, withholding billions of dollars in promised severance, and pushing out workers. X has denied any wrongdoing, and some of these cases have been dismissed, leading to pending appeals from the plaintiffs.
In the case at hand, the plaintiffs claimed that Twitter laid off about 58% of its female engineers compared to around 45% of male engineers after Musk’s takeover. They also cited alleged sexist comments by Musk. However, Tigar pointed out that these comments were unrelated to the layoffs, which were executed by individual managers and not by Musk himself. He further rejected the plaintiffs’ attempt to compare their case to a separate age bias lawsuit related to the layoffs, in which a different judge denied X’s motion to dismiss.
In that other case, Tigar explained, the plaintiff specifically alleged that he was laid off despite performing as well as or better than younger coworkers who kept their jobs. “Plaintiffs fail to make such allegations here,” Tigar concluded.
The case is Strifling v. Twitter Inc., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 4:22-cv-07739.
