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U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar in Oakland said the lawsuit filed
in December was "devoid of basic information," such as the
plaintiffs' positions with Twitter and the identity of managers
who decided which workers would be laid off.
Tigar also said that allegedly sexist remarks made by Musk and
cited by the plaintiffs were irrelevant because they came long
before he acquired Twitter for $44 billion last year.
The decision came after a different judge in the same court on
Friday dismissed a separate lawsuit accusing Twitter of
discriminating against workers with disabilities by requiring
employees to report to the office and put in long hours working
at high intensity after the layoffs in November.
Both judges gave the plaintiffs three weeks to file amended
lawsuits further detailing their claims.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs in both cases,
said that she planned to file a revised complaint in each
lawsuit adding new facts.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The plaintiffs in the sex discrimination lawsuit say that
Twitter laid off 57% of its female workers compared to 47% of
men after Musk took over. The disparity was more stark for
engineering roles, where 63% of women lost their jobs compared
to 48% of men, according to the lawsuit.
The disability bias case was filed in November by a former
engineering manager and cancer survivor who claims that Twitter
fired him when he refused to stop working remotely. Musk said in
a memo to staff in November that employees should be prepared to
work "long hours at high intensity" or quit.
The lawsuits are among several Twitter is facing stemming from
Musk's decision to lay off about half of the company's
workforce.
Twitter has denied wrongdoing in those cases, including ones
claiming that the company failed to pay promised severance.
Liss-Riordan also represents nearly 2,000 former Twitter
employees who have filed legal claims against the company in
arbitration.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by
Will Dunham, Alexia Garamfalvi and Jamie Freed)
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