A federal judge has ruled that Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit alleging the EV giant systematically discriminated against American workers by favoring H-1B visa holders for engineering positions while laying off over 6,000 United States employees in 2024.
Electrek reports that U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria determined that the plaintiff had presented sufficient facts for the case to move forward, despite expressing skepticism regarding the overall strength of the claims. The ruling represents a significant development in an ongoing controversy surrounding Tesla’s hiring practices and use of H-1B visas.
Software engineer Scott Taub initiated the proposed class action lawsuit in September 2025, claiming that Tesla overlooked him for an engineering position as part of what he describes as a systematic preference for hiring foreign visa holders. This practice, according to the complaint, violates federal civil rights law. Taub alleges that a recruiter working for a staffing company explicitly informed him that the engineering position he pursued was designated for H-1B workers only.
In his order issued this week, Judge Chhabria permitted Taub’s claims to proceed to the next phase of litigation. The lawsuit contends that Tesla hired approximately 1,355 H-1B visa holders throughout 2024 while simultaneously terminating more than 6,000 domestic workers, with the majority of those laid off believed to be U.S. citizens.
Breitbart News previously reported on the troubling timing of Tesla’s 2024 layoff and hiring of H-1B visa holders:
Tesla alone requested over 2,000 H-1B visas during the period when it was laying off thousands of U.S. workers. This figure represents over three percent of the total H-1B visas available nationwide. According to the affected employees, many of those laid off were senior engineers with higher salaries, who have been replaced by more junior foreign engineers at lower pay rates. This practice has raised concerns about companies using the H-1B program to cut labor costs and displace American workers.
Elon Musk has recently been using his considerable influence to advocate for increasing the number of H-1B visas, arguing that there are not enough skilled workers in the US to meet the needs of companies like Tesla. However, this stance has drawn criticism from some of Musk’s conservative supporters, who view the H-1B program as a threat to American jobs.
The judge dismissed claims brought by a second plaintiff, human resources specialist Sofia Brander, stating it was implausible that Tesla would prefer to hire foreign workers specifically for human resources positions. Brander was granted two weeks to file an amended complaint addressing the deficiencies identified by the court.
Tesla has vigorously denied the allegations, characterizing them as preposterous in court filings. The company maintains that its hiring and layoff decisions were based on legitimate business considerations rather than discriminatory preferences.
The lawsuit builds upon existing controversy that has intensified over the past year. Data from the U.S. Department of Labor indicates that Tesla requested over 2,000 H-1B visas during the same period when the company was conducting mass layoffs. Given the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas for the entire country, Tesla’s requests represented more than three percent of the total available visas.
Judge Chhabria acknowledged in his ruling that the 2024 statistics demonstrate Tesla hired a substantial number of H-1B holders during that year, but do not necessarily prove the company preferred them over U.S. citizens. He noted that these circumstances caused him to be somewhat skeptical of Taub’s allegations, though not sufficiently skeptical to warrant dismissing the case entirely.
The alleged comment from the recruiter designating the position as H-1B only emerged as the critical factor in allowing the case to continue. If proven accurate, such a statement would constitute direct evidence of the type of discrimination alleged in the lawsuit.
Elon Musk is a prominent supporter of the H-1B visa system. As recently as December 2025, Musk gushed about the quality of Indian H-1B workers. In December 2024, Breitbart News reported on the first cracks in the relationship between Elon Musk and the MAGA movement when he lashed out at Trump supporters demanding the H-1B visa program be drastically changed to favor Americans over foreigners:
One X user on Friday stated, “Let’s optimize H1-B,” a reference to Musk’s belief that things that should not exist should not be optimized.
“The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B,” Musk raged in response to the X user. “Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
Musk’s comment is a paraphrase of a line from the 2008 comedy film Tropic Thunder.
Read more at Electrek here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
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