X funds lawsuit against Jack Dorsey’s Block to support “right to free speech”

X is finance a lawsuit filed by Chloe Happe against her former employer Block, founded by Jack Dorsey, the same person who founded the website formerly known as Twitter. In her lawsuit, Happe said Block wrongfully terminated her in retaliation for two posts she made on what she called her “pseudonymous and satirical account” on X during her free time. One of the messages published after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 referred to refugees fleeing Gaza and arriving in the Kurdistan region. In another, she used ableist language and a slur against transgender people while referencing the use of “gender-neutral restrooms in the office.”

Happe repeatedly emphasized that she was “expressing her political views, opinions or beliefs in the form of satire.” She said she did not mention Block in any messages on her anonymous account and did not post those messages during her work hours. Happe also said she “voluntarily deleted” the refugee post days after it was posted. She deleted the post containing the insults the same day she posted it, after realizing that X had limited her visibility.

But Block still obtained copies of the messages and did not tell her whether another employee had complained about them, she argued in her lawsuit, admitting that she initially denied posting them out of fear of to have troubles. She accused Block of firing her, without compensation, solely because she expressed opinions the company disagreed with. Happe argued that Block’s policies expressly allowed its employees to express themselves as in his post, and therefore it was the company that violated its own rules. Jack Dorsey, founder of Block (a financial services company) and Twitter, had publicly supported Elon Musk before the latter took ownership of the social media platform. Last year, however, he changed his tone and criticized Musk, saying “everything went wrong” after he took over and that he “should have walked away” from the acquisition.

On his own, Elon Musk retweeted X’s announcement that he supports Happe’s trial with the caption: “Supporting your right to free speech.” The company had previously funded other lawsuits in the name of “freedom of expression”. One such case is Gina Carano’s lawsuit against Lucasfilm and Disney, whom she accuses of kicking her out of The Mandalorian for expressing views that were “not consistent with the acceptable narrative of the time.” Carano notably questioned the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines and added “boop/bop/beep” as pronouns. She also shared an Instagram post comparing the treatment of conservatives in America to the treatment of Jews in Nazi-era Germany.

Happe is asking the court to order her reinstatement as an employee of Block. She is also seeking compensatory and punitive damages, including for lost wages from the time she was fired.

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