A Missouri woman’s lawsuit against one tech company worth billions of dollars is being bankrolled by another tech company worth billions of dollars. As it so happens, both firms were founded by the same St. Louis native.
Chloe Happe, a resident of Lincoln County, Missouri, says in her lawsuit filed in federal court last week that she was wrongfully terminated from her job at payments processing company Block (formerly Square) because of “constitutionally protected speech” she made on X (formerly Twitter).
Happe, who worked as a customer support representative then a project manager for Block, is suing to be rehired by the company as well as for damages and a ruling that her termination was in violation of Missouri law.
According to the suit, Happe uses the pseudonymous handle @samsarashawty to make satirical posts in the persona of "a young, married Kurdistani woman who takes care of sheep and goats in the Zagros Mountains, cares for her child, occasionally hunts falcons, and posts on X while waiting for her husband to return from working his 18-hour days caring for their sheep."
Two of these posts, both since deleted, found the attention of Block HR and cost Happe her job, the suit says.
One of the posts, its exact content unclear, was made in early October, presumably in the wake of the October 7 attacks on Israel. That tweet involved Happe commenting on refugees leaving Gaza and coming to the area of the Middle East, where her falcon-hunting alter-ego lives.
The other post, made later in October, didn’t have an obvious connection to the Twitter persona. It read: “Looking fear in the eyes today as I am using the ADA gender neutral restroom in the office and a retarded tranny in a wheelchair knocks on the door.”
On October 30, 2023, Happe had a meeting with Block HR during which the HR rep showed Happe the two offending posts. She initially denied making the posts, saying she was being impersonated by an ex-boyfriend. Block never said how the posts came to their attention or how they had connected them to Happe. She was fired the following month.
Naturally, since then, Elon Musk has gotten involved.
In August of last year, Musk, who owns X, said that the social media company would fund employment lawsuits brought by people fired for their posts to the platform. Suits the company has backed include one brought by actress and mixed martial artist Gina Carano, who was written off the TV series The Mandalorian after making a post in which she seemed to compare being a Republican in the U.S. in modern times to being Jewish in Germany during the Holocaust.
X has funded other, lower-profile suits. Happe's among them.
When she filed her initial suit in Lincoln County Cirrcuit Court in late March, X put out a statement announcing their financial backing of it. In their words, Happe was fired because her posts “did not conform to the prevailing political orthodoxy.” Musk tweeted his approval.
Both Twitter and Block were co-founded by Jack Dorsey, the former in 2006 and the latter with fellow St. Louis native Jim McKelvey in 2009. Block maintains offices in St. Louis, though their primary place of business is California.
Because Happe is suing an entity with its primary place of operations in a state other than the one she lives in, the suit was moved to federal court last week.
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