Judge delivers Elon Musk a big win over disgruntled former Twitter employees

Disgruntled former Twitter employees seeking to extract their pound of flesh from billionaire owner Elon Musk must now do so on an individual basis rather than through a class-action lawsuit, a judge has decided, in a big win for the SpaceX/Tesla CEO and the San Francisco-based company.

On Friday, US District Judge James Donato ruled that the five former workers who were hoping to sue the social media giant for firing them without adequate notice last year must pursue their claims individually through the private arbitration process, siding with Twitter by citing that they had signed agreements with the company, Daily Mail reported.

The company is facing a deluge of legal complaints from previously entitled employees who reacted angrily to having their privilege revoked with numerous allegations of discrimination over sex and disability keeping lawyers busy.

Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan who represents the plaintiffs said that she has already filed 300 arbitration demands on behalf of former Twitter workers and is likely to file hundreds more.

“The conduct of Twitter since Musk took over is incredibly egregious, and we will pursue every avenue to protect workers and extract from Twitter the compensation that is due to them,” Liss-Riordan said last month.

Twitter is also facing at least three complaints that were filed with a U.S. labor board alleging that workers were terminated for attempting to organize a strike, criticizing the company, and other conduct that is protected by federal law.

Following his $44 billion takeover of the company, Musk went about the process of cleaning house, acting quickly to fire top management including CEO Parag Agrawal as well as top censor Vijaya Gadde before making massive cuts in staffing, trimming the fat by ousting around 3,700 workers in an effort to control costs. The moves drew howls of outrage from the media and Democrat politicians who declared total war on the new “Chief Twit” who infuriated them by restoring free speech to the platform.

Entering Twitter Headquarters – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022

In the months since he took over, Musk has restored the accounts of numerous conservatives who had been banned for their political viewpoints including that of former President Donald J. Trump who was de-platformed by every major social media company in the days after the so-called “insurrection” on January 6, 2021. Trump has yet to tweet from the account since it was restored.

Musk has also provided the invaluable public service of working with several journalists including Matt Taibbi to publish internal documents on censorship, federal government meddling and control over the narrative about COVID in the ongoing series of releases known as the “Twitter Files,” shedding light on the nefarious nature of the “public-private partnership” in the days prior to his acquisition of the company.

“The San Francisco judge left for another day ‘as warranted by developments in the case’ whether the entire class action lawsuit must be dismissed, though, as he noted three other former Twitter employees who alleged they had opted out of the company’s arbitration agreement have joined the lawsuit after it was first filed,” according to Reuters.

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